


How to save Koro-sensei in an Alternate Timeline and make it back before Dinner

by gwendee



Series: The Whole Alternate Timelines Mess [1]
Category: Assassination Classroom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, As This Fic Gets Updated, Assassination, Don't Glance At The Character Tags Either, Gen, Illegal Activities, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Like Theft, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Canon, Shipping Weird Ships, So Stop Reading, Starring The Weirdest Trio That Anyone Has Ever Put Together, Tags Contain Spoilers, The Author Regrets Nothing, The Weirdest Fic You'll Possibly Ever Read, Time Travel, Very Casual Law Breaking, messing with time, the usual, you know
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-29
Updated: 2019-06-22
Packaged: 2020-03-26 17:15:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 22
Words: 27,762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19010251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gwendee/pseuds/gwendee
Summary: Itona would say, very bitterly, that this was all Gakushuu’s fault. Gakushuu would say that it was all Irina’s. Irina would say that she had nothing to do any of this at all, and it were the boys who failed to keep their testosterone in their pants long enough to be rational about things.Which doesn't quite explain why they're stuck in the year 2014, frantically pouring over plans and blueprints and trying to find a way to break into a high security lab and not die.And you know. Maybe save human Koro-sensei from being turned into a yellow octopus creature by a mad scientist. It's not that big of a deal.Or: The Gakushuu Asano, Itona Horibe, and Irina Jelavic team-up fic nobody asked for but is getting anyways.





	1. 2018

**Author's Note:**

> Before you ask, I don't know either.  
> I needed the three most unlikely people who would want to save Koro-sensei, to save Koro-sensei. I thought of this trio team-up one day during work and had to wait agonizing outs until the end of my shift to start schemeing about it, and now I'm on a roll and can't stop.  
> Yeah, seems really weird to me too. But hope it turns out at least slightly comprehensible and interesting?

**2018**

Itona would say, very bitterly, that this was all Gakushuu’s fault. Gakushuu would say that it was all Irina’s. Irina would say that she had nothing to do any of this at all, and it were the boys who failed to keep their testosterone in their pants long enough to be rational about things. It was all three of their collective faults all poured into one steaming hot-pot of a terrible situation, really, not that any of them would ever admit it.

The trio do unanimously agree, however, (Gakushuu rather begrudgingly,) that this all started because Gakushuu can’t keep his nose to himself and just  _ had  _ to be a bother. To which Gakushuu says, “if you were an outsider, you would want to know what happened, too,” to which Irina says, “that’s fair,” and Itona says, “whose side are you on?”  

 

_ Record scratch, freeze frame. You’re probably wondering how i got into this situation. _

 

Rewind. Gakushuu, passing by a storefront for a rather normal electronics repair shop after school one mundane tuesday afternoon, sees a rather abnormal picture: ex-Kunugigaoka Middle 3-E student Horibe Itona hunched over a workbench fiddling with… well, something, and ex-assassin turned middle school teacher turned government agent Irina Jelavic perched on a stool, picking at her nails. 

Gakushuu, with all of that cat-killing curiosity and none of that Rome-building patience, storms in. 

“It’s you!” Jelavic says, pointing a well-manicured finger, “Gakushuu Asano!” 

Horibe, in response, scowls.

“It’s me,” Gakushuu agrees, “saw a few ex-associates of mine and came to say hi.”

“Who?” Horibe says flatly.

“You,” Gakushuu says, then, “hello.”

The look Horibe gives him is woefully unimpressed. Gakushuu matches his stare with his best customer-service grin. Jelavic looks between them with surmounting glee and blows a puff of air over her pinkie.

“Please go away,” says Horibe.

“What are you working on?” Gakushuu says. He stalks up and peers over the workbench, and Horibe glares at him. It’s a tangle of wires soldered crappily to circuits boards.

“A little project for me,” Jelavic says breezily, “you can help if you wanna.”

“No,” Horibe says, forcefully.

“I’ll leave if you tell me everything about Koro-sensei and class 3-E,” Gakushuu says.

Horibe opens his arms in a sarcastic “welcome aboard” gesture and leans back on his chair, and then crosses his arms and sulks. Gakushuu stares at the ball of parts. “What does this do?”

“That’s what we’re trying to figure out,” Jelavic says.

Gakushuu’s got nothing. “This does nothing,” he surmises.

“The smartest thing you’ve said all day,” Horibe mutters.

“It does  _ something _ ,” Jelavic argues, “I got this from a- well, someone who has very important and dangerous things and I  _ need  _ to know what this little jingaroo does!”

“Someone who  _ has very important and dangerous things _ ?” Horibe says, “how illegal is this?”

“Not a lot,” Jelavic says, “a bit. Well, Tadaomi would probably be a little mad. Not  _ that  _ illegal.”

“You’re insane,” Horibe says. Gakushuu shares his sentiment.

“Well if you won’t want to work on it, you don’t have to,” Jelavic snaps, “give it back.”

“I’ll look at it,” Gakushuu says, moving the device away from her. He’s really intrigued now, damn if he’s going to be out of the loop again for one of 3-E’s shenanigans. Granted, this doesn’t seem to be a 3-E situation but it was the principle of the matter.

“No you won’t,” Horibe says, “hand it over, you don’t know a single bit about electronics.”

“Me?” Gakushuu says incredulously, “do you know who you’re talking to?”

“Someone who has a bigger ego than common sense,” Horibe counters. He grabs the mess of parts from Gakushuu. 

“I guarantee I know more than you do,” Gakushuu says, holding the device out of his reach.

“Will you boys stop that?” Jelavic says, “your dick measuring is giving me a headache.”

“You’re crass,” Horibe says. She squawks and makes a grab for the wires, and Horibe tugs at it, but there’s no way Gakushuu was going to let go, so it’s a tug-of-war stalemate with an unknown and possibly very dangerous object, until a wire snags and snaps and comes apart with a pop.

“Is that bad?” Jelavic says.

“Probably,” Gakushuu says. 

“ _ Fuck _ ,” Horibe says.

Then there's a huge flash of white light, like all cliche "something's happening" scenes go, and then there’s nothing.


	2. 1998

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, welcome again! I'd just like to thank everyone for giving this fic a chance, I know it's super weird and I'm not going to lie it gets way weirder HAHA so hit me up with whatever feedback anyone has. For now it's just me being self-indulgent and overly invested in imaginary lives of fictional characters and I'm always taking suggestions!

**1998**

“Wake up,” says a voice, and then Gakushuu feels a slap on the face.

“What?” He opens his eyes and squints against the sunlight, and sees Horibe scowling down at him. Gakushuu scowls back and pushes him away, then sits up. To his right Jelavic is getting to her feet and rubbing her head.

They’re on an empty street of some sort, streets lined with trees and little flats and street signs in english. A car drives past, and it’s license plate is very obviously not Japanese.

“Where are we?” Gakushuu says.

“England,” says Jelavic. She crosses her arms.

“We were in Tokyo literally a minute ago,” Gakushuu says, “how could we possibly be in England?!”

“This isn’t Japan,” Jelavic points out. “Hold on.” Gakushuu and Horibe watch as she saunters up to a passer-by and chats with them for a moment. The passer-by hands their phone over, which, holy shit what model is that? Gakushuu hasn’t seen it in his life, even Horibe looks dumbfounded.

Jelavic returns. “Bad news boys,” she says, pursing her lips, “we’re in the year 1998.”

“I beg your pardon?” says Gakushuu.

“This isn’t possible,” says Horibe.

“Did you see the phone he was carrying?” Jelavic says, “that was a Nokia. No one uses Nokias anymore. I checked, we’re in Manchester, England in the Spring of 1998 and I’m guessing it has something to do with _that_.”

Horibe looks down at the device in his hands, still the same hodgepodge of resistors and capacitors with now one loose wire. Then he looks up back at Gakushuu, and says, “this is your fault.”

“ _My_ fault?” Gakushuu says, “Oh _I’m sorry_ , what do you mean we’re in Manchester in 1998? That’s not possible. That’s ludicrous.” He pulls out his phone, and turns it on, then stares at the black screen. “It’s not turning on.”

Horibe has his in his hand too. “Mine’s not either.”

“What are you going to do, google for a way out? It’s 1998, google doesn’t exist yet,” says Jelavic.

“Google exsted in 1998,” Horibe says.

Jelavic huffs. “Nerds.”

“I don’t believe you,” Gakushuu says. He crosses the road to a newspaper stand and smiles at the very English man at the stand, then skims the top of the publications that tell him that yes, it is the 22nd of May of the year 1998, and they are in Manchester, England.

This has to be a prank. A very elaborate, messed-up prank. Time travel isn’t real, it isn’t.

“I’m sorry,” Gakushuu says in english, “what year is this?”

“It’s 1998, kid,” the man says in heavily accented english, and gives him a weird look.

“Thank you,” Gakushuu says. He walks back to Jelavic and Horibe. Neither of them are smiling.

“Believe me now?” Jelavic says, arms crossed.

“How do we get out of this?” Gakushuu demands.

Very quickly, after Jelavic pickpockets three people and buys a soldering kit from a hardware store down the road, the three huddle around and watch as Horibe solders the wire back into place.

“Nothing’s happening,” Jelavic says in disappointment. “Maybe we should yank it out again?”

“No!” Horibe says, “you don’t know what your actions will do. Do you want us to be sent back another 20 years in the past?”

“I don’t see you two coming up with any ideas,” Jelavic grumbles. Gakushuu and Horibe exchange a look.

“I’m thinking when the wire tripped,” Gakushuu says, “there was a power surge, like a short circuit, over one of the parallel wires and probably triggered something. We probably have to replace the resistor here.”

“And figure out how to reverse the polarity of the device,” Horibe says, “hm.”

“I’m thinking you two need more money,” Jelavic sighs, dusting off her skirt as she gets back up with determination. “I’ll get us some.” She steals enough to replace the burnt resistor and buy them food, and they sit alongside the pavement and eat sandwiches in silence.

“You guys want to go shopping?” Jelavic says, breaking the silence. “I want to get some vintage clothes.”

“This isn’t a vacation, Jelavic,” Gakushuu says, “are you serious?”

“First off, call me Irina,” she wrinkles her nose, “Jelavic makes me sound _old._ And second, you said the thingaling needs to charge or whatever, right? We can make the best out of it while we’re here. How long does this have, Itona?”

Horibe sullenly chews his sandwich. “Another hour more, at least.” He’s hooked up the device to an LED screen and made some sense of the circuits with Gakushuu’s help. Irina had gotten enough money for a solar panel which was cooking happily in the midday sun, and the little battery logo was slowly filling up.

“See?” Irina says. “Have some fun. You seem like someone with good fashion sense. Let’s hit a boutique for another hour or so, and we can get some-”

A gunshot rings out. They jump to their feet, and turn into the direction of a screaming woman, and a man staining the sidewalk red by her feet.

“Them,” Irina says. Gakushuu traces her line of sight, to see a man and a teenager watching the scene with vague interest, the teenager bouncing on the heels of his feet. The man says something to the teen, who stills and hangs his head, and they walk off.

‘They’re assassins,” says Horibe.

“The teen shot him,” Irina says, studying the duo with sharp eyes, “he’s hiding a gun in his coat. I can’t place the man, but, Itona, you seeing the kid? White hair, amber eyes?”  
“Yeah,” Horibe says quietly.

“What’s going on?” Gakushuu demands.

“That’s Reaper,” Horibe says.

“Who?”

“Reaper,” Irina clarifies, “is the title of the world’s best assassin. That was Reaper of our time, well, of our time 3 years ago, approximately. But remember what he said? He’s not the first. He had a teacher.”

Horibe’s eyes light up. “Koro-sensei?”

Irina nods. “That’s him.”

Gakushuu frowns. “I’m not following,”

“The man was Koro-sensei back when he had been human,” Irina says. She immediately turns around and stalks off in the opposite direction, and by the time Gakushuu and Horibe catch up to her, she’s already in a thrift store grabbing random articles of clothing off the shelves.

“Not the best place to do shopping, but we have to make the best out of the situation,” she says, dumping a cap on Horibe’s head and slinging a jacket around Gakushuu. “Lose the uniform. We don’t want to be ID-ed, especially from your school in particular.”

“Is this necessary?” Gakushuu says, as she throws a pair of slacks at him.

“Wasn’t before,” she says, “but people in our career don’t forget things easily, and it’s our job to notice things. We stand out, we’re suspicious, and you’re wearing a uniform for a school that doesn’t exist yet. You really want to be singled out in 20 years because they saw you in 1998? Luckily for you, blondes are pretty commonplace, but your white hair, Itona? We might have to do something about your eyes, Asano, they’re pretty distinctive.”

“What are we going to do, gouge them out?” Asano mutters. But he does pull the jacket around him, and Horibe reluctantly tugs the cap over his hair.

They throw the hardware in a backpack that Irina grabbed off the shelves, along with Gakushuu’s uniform, and leave the thrift store looking nothing like themselves.

“Is the thingathang ready yet?” Irina says, “we should leave. The longer we’re here, the easier it is to pick out that we don’t belong.”

“Done,” Horibe says.

“How do we know it works?” Gakushuu demands.

“Only one way to find out,” Horibe says. He flicks a switch.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys, you're absolutely right, I wrote this entire fic just to have a reason to picture Irina in Brie Larson as Carol Danver's 90s ensemble of outfits. No, but really. (I do have a tumblr now which I created so I could link pictures from it so if you're ever bored, find me! I'm gwendeeagain, you know, again.)
> 
> Haha okay we're starting off now, the trio spends approximately one hour in 1998, they catch a glimpse of human Koro-sensei and his little apprentice, go shopping, and they're off. Where are they going? I'm so excited.


	3. 2002

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sup! 
> 
> As you can tell, (or you would be able to in a few short moments,) I have no goddamn clue how to write Itona at all. Is this what he would do? Who is he? He was such a cutie and my character research, if you could call it research, started with his Wikipedia page and ended with me looping videos of his face.

**2002**

“Wakey wakey,” a voice sings, and Itona gets smacked on the head.

Itona groans as he opens his eyes and glares at Asano, who is giving him a challenging expression. He’s not going to be goaded into a fight.

“Did it work?” He asks.

“Not in the slightest,” Asano says. It doesn’t sound accusing, so Itona lets it slide. They’re in the middle of a road again, this time in what seems to be a rather dilapidated and empty small town as opposed to a city, and the surroundings are more unfamiliar than ever.

“Are we in Russia?” Asano says. He’s talking to Irina, not him. The street signs are in Cyrillic.

“No,” Irina says, but there’s a glazed look in her eyes as she glances around. She’s Serbian, he remembers distantly, and he walks up to Asano’s side as he watches Irina warily.

“Is she okay?” Asano says, brow furrowed, when Irina had wandered out of earshot.

“She’s Serbian,” Itona tells him quietly, “maybe she knows this place.”

“Always figured she was from Central Europe but could never pinpoint the country,” Asano muses. Itona doesn’t reply to that. They walk after Irina, who has slowed to a stop by a road, staring at something with an unreadable expression on her face.

“Irina?” Asano asks, then turns to look and stops in his tracks. Itona sucks in a deep breath.

Standing by the roadside is a little girl who could pass off as Irina’s doppelganger, blonde hair and large blue eyes and sobbing quietly into her hands. The left side of her face and dress are splattered with blood.

“2002,” Irina says quietly. This isn’t Irina’s doppelganger, this _is_ her, Itona realizes. Her in 2002, and if she was 24 now, or well in 2018, she must have been… 8, now.

Asano has stepped back and closer to Itona. “What happened?” he asks him softly, Irina obviously listening in but choosing not to respond, just to gaze at her younger self with a solemn expression.

Itona doesn’t reply.

Asano steps forward, and immediately Irina reaches out to grasp his arm tightly, stopping him in his tracks.

“There’s no one else around,” Asano says, “2002, Serbia. There was an… ethnic war.”

“Smart,” Irina says, voice distant.

“I’m sorry,” Asano says.

“There’s nothing to be done,” Irina says, mostly to herself. Then to Asano, “it’s alright.”

The little girl sniffles. She hasn’t noticed them yet. Itona looks back at Asano and Irina, who are now quietly talking between themselves, and Itona steps away. There’s probably a lot of repercussions for meddling with the past but he feels… sorry, for this little girl that would become his teacher, and he thinks about how it reminds him of himself, back when he was alone without anyone to stand with him.

She probably won’t remember much, he reasons with himself, she’s so young, after all. He would have hoped someone would come up to him when he had been alone, to say anything at all, just to let him know it was okay.

Probably wouldn’t change much of the future, if it would change the future at all. Nothing wrong with wanting to comfort a crying little girl.

Irina and Asano have stopped talking now. Itona briefly looks back at them, but their expressions are impassive and they make no move to stop him. Itona silently walks to little-Irina and says a soft “hi”, and only then she notices him and startles.

Little-Irina blurts something in a language he doesn’t understand, probably Serbian? She takes a few wary steps back and Itona holds up both hands, to show that he’s unarmed, and bends down. “Hi.”

Little-Irina stares distrustfully, bottom lip quivering. She’s holding a knife, he sees, trying to hide it under her dress. It’s still stained red.

“Are you okay?” Itona says. He doesn’t risk a glance at Irina or Asano lest it catches little-Irina’s attention whose current focus is all on him, and he very slowly brings his hand up to touch her cheek, and wipe off some of the blood on it.

Little-Irina stiffens at the contact, then sags, then starts crying. The knife falls to the ground and she blubbers words in Serbian Itona doesn’t understand, but he knows what someone looks like when they need a hug, so he pulls her into one. She lets him.

When they pull apart little-Irina grips at his arm, tears glistening in her eyes. Itona wipes off the rest of the blood with his sleeve and plucks the knife from the floor, and presses the handle into her hands. She sniffles and says something, and there’s no way to abandon her now, Itona realizes with a drop in his gut.

Across from them, Asano and Irina have settled high up in a tree, away from little-Irina’s line of sight. Irina is watching him with a soft expression and Asano is fiddling with the device, but he does make eye contact with Itona and holds up a finger.

They have to wait one hour anyways. Itona sits down crossed-legged and pats the ground next to him. Little-Irina hesitates for a brief moment, then sits down next to him, and starts speaking in Serbian. Itona still doesn’t understand, but he hums and nods and says “ah” once in a while, which seems to satisfy the little girl. He’s pretty sure more than an hour passes but there’s no way to up and run off, not with little-Irina chatting his ear off, and he doesn’t quite want to run off and leave.

At some point Itona feels eyes on him and looks up, and finds that Asano and Irina are desperately trying to get his attention. Irina points to a dirt path curving off into nowhere and makes the same hand gesture that 3-E had learnt in their training, ‘leave’. Asano is using sign language which Itona doesn’t quite understand, but there’s an urgency in their actions and Itona takes it for what it is.

“Hey,” he says, getting little-Irina’s attention, “go over there.” Itona points at the end of the path Irina was gesturing towards. Little-Irina stares at him, and it takes several more tries before she stands up and heads towards the path, looking back to make sure Itona is following and beaming at him when he smiles back at her, which makes him feel so much more horrible for what he’s about to do.

They walk quietly along the path, little-Irina in front of him humming a little tune, and just as they pass an old building, Itona seizes the moment and jumps up. He clambers through a window just as little-Irina whips around at the noise and makes a distressed sound at Itona’s disappearance, and there’s a huge part of him that wishes to come down and tell her that he’s not gone, as she starts crying again.

He looks up at Irina and Asano, who hold out their hands in a universal gesture for wait. It's... painful, Itona thinks, listening to her cry. It reminds him very much of himself, of how he didn’t want to be alone when nobody came for him.

Barely a few minutes pass, little-Irina is seated by the building and sobbing, still looking around as if she wishes Itona would appear, when a woman walks down the dirt path and runs into her. That must be what Irina and Asano were trying to tell him, Itona thinks.

The woman speaks to little-Irina in Serbian, and takes her hand and walks off. Itona waits for them to walk far enough and away, then scales down the building.

“Should be charged up enough,” Asano says in greeting. “How was socializing?”

Itona stares, deadpan. Asano’s lips quirk up in a grin. “Irina doesn’t feel any sense of deja-vu or like her world’s been spun on an axis, so I think we can hypothesize that our actions here doesn’t affect what happened to us. Alternate timeline theory, if you will, although I’m not sure what that means for us and this thing,” he holds up the device, “but there’s really no other way to find out.”

Irina is looking pensive, but she smiles at Itona with a gratefulness he has never seen from her, and he feels a little… well, he feels _something_ and he’s not sure if he wants to think about it. “Flip the switch,” he says.

Asano does.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you managed to not give up halfway, welcome to the end notes! You might be wondering: this all seems unnecessarily confusing. I just wanted them to beat up Shiro and pin the half-moon tie on the human-Korosensei. Well guess what? That's not going to happen (for several more chapters at the least, but we'll get there.) For now, let's all briefly touch-and-go with everyone's sad backstories just for fun (or is it?) and if you wanna diss my characterization/timeline/anything, really just let me know!


	4. 2006

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi again! I see some people have followed my tumblr. Sorry to disappoint but there is a stunning level of 0 content there, but thanks! I feel like I have friends now <3  
> Onwards: year 2006! I wonder what happens.

**2006**

Irina loses her coat the moment she has her senses back, because it's warm. Then looks around, beams, and says, "looks like we're back, boys!"

"Huh?" Behind him, Itona rubs his cheek and glares at Asano, who looks unrepentantly smug. Both of them finally take in their surroundings and their eyes widen.

"We're in Japan," Asano says. "We're back?"

"Well," Irina starts, then something catches her attention: a lady walks past her speaking loudly into a flip phone, and someone in her periphery is reading a newspaper with, of all things, _the death of Steve Irwin_ as a headline. "Not quite," she says.

Itona frowns. "2006," he says, walking up to them with a flyer for a clothes sale happening downtown. The date is clearly reflected.

"We've traveled four years in the right direction each way," Asano says, "just thrice more to go." Then he eyes the flyer and frowns. "No."

Irina latches on to his thought. "Why not?" She says playfully, "we have money, we have an hour to kill. And your clothes are so 12 years ago, by the way."

Asano rolls his eyes at her. "Let's grab a bite to eat."

"Food," Itona agrees.

That does seem good. "Does Kunugigaoka exist yet?" She asks.

"Nope," Asano says. "It should be built soon, though. Actually…" His voice trails off and he looks thoughtfully in the distance. "What day is it?"

"August 22," Itona says, looking at his flyer.

"Oh fuck," Asano says, eyes widening, "that's today."

"What's today?" Irina asks, but Asano has already broken into a run. Itona exchanges a look with her and he gives chase, and there's no choice but to do anything but follow, right? Not that they can be split up, all their phones are dead and if they separate, they separate. Little shits abandoning her here.

"Wait up, assholes!" She calls. Irina goes after them and thankfully doesn't lose sight of Itona. She's kind of glad Tadaomi made her do all that cardio.

They come onto a bridge, and Irina might snark about running all that way to sightsee a structure that still exists instead of taking advantage of lack of inflation, but both Itona and Asano are chillingly silent.

There's a boy on the bridge, that they're watching. He's peering over the edge.

"I don't care what happens to him," Asano spits, shockingly bitter, "I don't."

Irina knows the signs. "He's going to jump," she says. Asano stiffens but he doesn't break his gaze. "You know that."

"I don't care what happens to him," Asano repeats like he's trying to convince himself, fingernails digging into his palm. "This is his own fault, he's weak and his actions are just going to hurt himself and drag others down with him."

Irina hangs back. Itona stands with her, they watch Asano watch the boy, watch as the boy clambers off the edge of the bridge and hesitates and-

"I don't _care_ what happens to you!" Asano yells after him.

The boy startles at the noise. Slips, and loses his footing on the edge of the beam, and hits the water.

"Fuck!" Asano yells. In a split second he's over the edge of the railing and diving headfirst into the water. Irina rushes to peer over the edge of the water but she sees neither of them, the boy nor Asano.

"Down there," Itona says. He points at a vaguely blonde head shaped object bobbing up and down the water.

"Riverbank," Irina says. She and Itona head down to the bank by the bridge, and she has to lose her heels trudging through the mud and stain her jeans. They arrive just as Asano emerges from the water spluttering and pissed, dragging the boy like a corpse behind him.

"Piece of _shit_ ," Asano hisses. He dumps the boy roughly on the ground and proceeds to perform rather aggressive but perfectly executed CPR, save for any form of mouth-to-mouth, and finally the boy wakes up and coughs up stinking river water.

"What-"

"You," Asano growls, stabbing a finger into the boy's chest just as he tries to get up, forcing him back down with an "oomph". "Do you know how much goddamn trouble you are? Killing yourself over what, couple of bullies? You're pathetic. Being a good person doesn't mean having to take shit and you can still live up to your stupid morals and kick the hell out of their asses, so think about _that_ before you try to off yourself, you hear?"

The boy's jaw drops. "I-"

" _Fuck you,_ " Asano says again. Shoves his knee into his abdomen and stalks off, leaving the boy staring slack jawed after him. Itona huffs and follows. Irina does too, not bothering to glance back at the boy, before they can abandon her again.

"What was that about?" Irina demands.

"Hypothesis, things we do here won't change us," Asano says. He closes his eyes, sighs, then opens them again. "Hypothesis proven, I don't feel any different."

"What happened?" Itona asks.

"It's," Asano runs his hand over his face. "Nothing."

"No, it's not," Irina says gently, because Asano just sprinted to stop someone from killing themselves at a very specific bridge for which he had the date memorized. They walk in silence away from the bridge, towards a park.

Asano sits down heavily on a bench. "It’s complicated,” he sighs.

Irina perks up. “He’s your ex?”

“What the fuck? No,” Asano gives her the stink eye, “Remember what year this is? I’m 6, idiot.”

“Nobody says ‘it’s complicated’ for anything else,” Irina justifies. She sits on one side of Asano, and Itona sits on the other.

“Both of you are intimately familiar with how Kunugigaoka works,” Asano says, “well, it’s all this asshole’s fault. His name is Rikuto Ikeda, and he was one of my father’s favorite students, killed himself because he got bullied too much. That man went insane when he died, became obsessed with making ‘strong’ students instead of good ones, hence the discriminatory system that was Kunugigaoka; to cultivate a crop of strong students by sacrificing the weak. Which is pretty hypocritical, ironically.”

There’s a pause. That explains a fair lot, Irina thinks, although the concept itself was rather twisted. Really does put things into perspective, and she feels a pang of pity for Asano about his home-life.

“That sucks,” says Itona.

Asano snorts. “Yeah.”

“So what’s going to happen in this, well, alternate reality?” Irina asks.

“I’m guessing my father doesn’t go psycho,” Asano muses, “I have a normal childhood, and Kunugigaoka doesn’t become the elitist dictatorship as it is in our time.”

“That’s good,” Itona says.

“Yeah,” Asano sobers up, “it actually really is.”

Irina’s glad, really, that in at least one alternate universe, things worked out for him. Maybe in her alternate reality, she would have grown up thinking Itona was something of the supernatural or her imagination, appearing or disappearing in a blink of an eye, but it did give her comfort when she had needed it, and that was enough, she supposes.

Asano pulls out the device, the green battery logo blinking, indicating a full charge. Has it been that ling? “You haven’t flicked the switch yet,” he says to Irina, “want to do the honors?”

“We’ve gone 4 years each time,” Irina says, “see you all in 2010.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah, mysteries of alternate universes and time travel. What do you think will happen next? (Totally not using my comments section to crowdsource for ideas)


	5. 2010

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A slightly (very much?) longer chapter. I'm using this fic to fulfill the need of drama in my life. Somebody talk to me

**2010**

Gakushuu’s eyes shoot open, and he quickly raises an arm to block the hand coming at his face. Horibe stares rather mournfully at his palm just a centimeter apart from Gakushuu’s cheek.

“Nice try,” Gakushuu bares his teeth in a smile, “move.”

“Looks like we’re in Canada,” Irina says. She’s holding a crumpled up newspaper. “April 2010.”  

Very imperceptibly, Horibe stiffens. Gakushuu catches it and says, “What’s up?”

“Nothing,” Horibe says, unconvincingly.

“Yeah, no,” says Irina, “we went through both our tragic backstories, it’s your turn. What’s up?”

“Things aren’t _that_ much of a coincidence,” Horibe protests hotly. Gakushuu and Irina aren’t buying it.

“What happened in April 2010?” Gakushuu asks, again.

Horibe gives him a reproachful look, then says, “it’s the time I decided to join Shiro.”

“Oh!” Irina says.

“Shiro? Who’s that?” Gakushuu demands. Another one of 3-E’s secrets?

“Shiro was the man who created the tentacles,” Irina says, “he created Koro-sensei, and gave Itona his tentacles.” At that, Horibe winces and touches the top of his head.

What? There was just so much to unpack here. “You had tentacles?” Gakushuu says, turning to Horibe, “like Koro-sensei? Were you like, an octopus creature? How did you turn back into a human?”

“I wasn’t an octopus,” Horibe mutters, “I just had tentacles growing out of the top of my head, the same type that Koro-sensei had.”

“Why would you join Shiro?” Gakushuu says.

Horibe doesn’t reply, but Gakushuu’s already thinking about it. Horibe doesn’t look particularly delighted at the prospect of joining this Shiro character, and he knows a thing or two about being unwillingly put into disastrous situations. And they’ve already changed a whole lot from some alternate timelines, what’s one more little thing going to do? “Let’s go rescue you,” Gakushuu says, before he stops himself.

“What?” Horibe looks at him, wide-eyed.

“Let’s go rescue you,” Gakushuu repeats. ”This alternate universe won’t affect our actual universe, and there’s one where my life doesn’t suck, so now we can make one where yours doesn’t.”

The two gape at him. Gakushuu knows that this seems completely out of character for him but you know what? Who cares? Did he find Horibe annoying? Yes. Did he want to challenge that brat into a fight and _win_? Very much so. Did he hate Horibe so much to doom him into, let’s see, five years of a life with some certified mad scientist like this Shiro character? Gakushuu put up with 18 years and counting of a life with a very similar psycho and he thinks, very emphatically, no. And learning more about the enigma of what 3-E actually was wouldn’t hurt.

“What do we have to lose?” Gakushuu says.

“I’m in,” Irina says. She’s grinning.

“I,” Horibe seems conflicted, “I don’t.”

“Even if we fail,” Gakushuu says, “we can just time travel our way out of it. But we won’t fail. Besides, don’t you want to kick Shiro’s ass?”

“Yes,” Horibe says, sounding as surprised as he looks, “I do, actually.”

“Then let’s do it,” Irina punches the air. “Let’s go save you, Itona! And kick Shiro’s ass!”

Gakushuu feels himself smiling as wide as her. When he turns, Horibe is giving him an astonished look. There’s no way Gakushuu is going to talk about feelings. “Where’s Shiro now?”

“Japan,” Horibe says, “so am I.”

“We need money,” Irina says, “and a wardrobe upgrade, and some weapons. Lots of money.”

“You going to steal some cash?” Gakushuu asks. Since when was he on board with such illegal behavior? Oh who was he kidding, he’d learnt to pick locks and pockets since he was a kid.

“Not some small change, we need to go big,” Irina winks at them, “let’s kill someone.”

“Oh, neat,” says Gakushuu, then, “wait, are you _serious_?”

Irina is not serious, she'd said so for dramatic effect, but she’s humming happily to herself polishing a gun she took out from her… bra? And pouring through a map of Vancouver. “If we hit some hotels, we can probably get a few rich guys to empty their pockets for us. For me, rather.”

“ _We?_ ” Gakushuu says. Next to him, Horibe looks vaguely haunted.

“Sure,” Irina says, “you have a pretty face. You can get some young ladies to fall at your feet.”

Gakushuu knows he’s attractive, but hearing it from someone like Irina, he’s not blind okay, he blushes. Irina claps her hands. “See? Blush cute like that and you’ll get all the girls. Looks like you don’t need much coaching. Itona, you remember my kissing lessons?”

“Unfortunately,” Itona grimaces.

“You gave him _kissing lessons_?”

“Seduction is an essential part of assassination,” she says.

“They were _assassinating Koro-sensei_. Why would kissing lessons be relevant for that? How did you even give them lessons?!”

“Don’t be such a prude,” she giggles as he splutters, “I’m not much older than you. Why, you want some lessons too, cutie?”

“No!” Gakushuu says, face red. “God!”

“You’re going to need practice if you want to get some cha-ching,” Irina winks, “why don’t you and Itona get it on? Let me evaluate your technique, give you some pointers.”

“You better be praying for your life that cha-ching means money,” Gakushuu says, “and I’m not making out with Horibe.”

“Shame,” Irina says in disappointment, but Horibe seems to share Gakushuu’s sentiment and looks particularly relieved. “I’ll just do all the work then, as usual. Don’t wait up for me.”

“Stop being a drama queen,” Gakushuu groans, “we’ll come with you, make sure no one taints your virtue or whatever.”

“My bodyguards,” Irina sighs dreamily, but the plan is set into motion. They pick some pockets, dress up a little, and then heads to a fancy hotel bar somewhere downtown. Horibe doesn’t look quite as old as them and so he says something about getting more money and disappears, but Gakushuu passes for 21 nicely enough that he doesn’t get ID-ed into the bar, and Irina saunters in like she owns the place. Heads turn the moment they walk in, which is flattering and works well for their plan, but Irina wades very quickly into the sea of unsuspecting men and Gakushuu finds himself mobbed by women.

“Hi,” says a bright-eyed lady that’s way too drunk for 4 in the afternoon, “what’s your name, cutie?”

What’s the protocol for things like this? Probably not giving his real name would be good. Gakushuu’s mind blanks, so instead he says, “why don’t you tell me what’s yours, so I don’t have to keep calling you beautiful?”

It sounds incredibly cheesy even to him, and he almost cringes. But it… works, weirdly enough, the lady giggles and introduces herself as “Cassie”, while who seem to be friends of hers slide up and shoot out names and compliments Gakushuu can’t really remember. The bartender slides him a drink and tells him it’s from ‘that redhead by the bar’, and someone winks at him and hikes her leg up on the stool.

Gakushuu feels like he’s going to die.

After what seems to be hours, which after he speaks to Irina about and turns out to be about 40 minutes, he’s still not sure what he ought to do in this situation but he has a few phone numbers and some credit cards he’s managed to nick, and he’s barely touched the three drinks on the bar that people have bought him, when Irina saunters up. Gakushuu never thought he’d be so glad to see her in his life.

 

Irina chases the girls off and hooks an arm around Gakushuu, and presses herself against him. Gakushuu wills himself not to blush. He’s getting her a shawl when they leave, a jacket, or something. He gives the men eyeing her a very vicious grin. The crowd parts like the red sea for them, Irina laughs loud when they’re walking down the street, headed for a motel a bit aways that she told Horibe to meet them at. “Did you have fun?”

“I’m never doing that again,” Gakushuu groans. He ditches his jacket and throws it over Irina’s front. She giggles. “What you got?”

“Couple of credit cards, some phone numbers,” Gakushuu says.

“Good,” Irina says, “let’s see what we can do with those.”

She’s scarily efficient, for how immature and airy she acts, and Gakushuu has to remind himself that she’s a world-class assassin with an arsenal of skills at her disposal. It’s barely five hours later that they’re on a business class flight to Japan, Irina has somehow managed to get them fake passports and sneak her pistol past airport security, how Gakushuu doesn’t really want to find out.

“So what do you know about Shiro?” Gakushuu asks, stretching out.

“He’s a scientist,” Horibe says, “he has a lab in Japan, but I’m not too sure on the specific location. In Tokyo, definitely. He’s married to Akari’s sister.”

“Akari?” Gakushuu asks.

“Uh, Kayano,” Horibe clarifies, “she’s an actress. Her stage name is Haruna Mase, her real name is Akari Yukimura, and her elder sister is Aguri Yukimura, who is married to Kotarou Yanagiswa, who is Shiro."

“I’m sorry,” Gakushuu says, mind spinning in circles, “what the fuck?”

“Like a bad movie plot, yeah,” Irina snorts.

“Isn’t Aguri the old 3-E teacher?” Gakushuu says, “she got killed in an accident. Then shortly after Koro-sensei took over.”

“Let’s tell him the whole story,” Irina says, “he’s not going to help if he’s this confused all the time.” They do, and it takes up 3 hours of their 10 hour flight, until Gakushuu gets the whole picture. Not the way he expected to finally learn about 3-E.

“Messed up,” he summarizes.

“Yep,” Irina says. She leans back and takes a sip of her airplane alcohol, and scrunches up her face.

"To find out where Shiro is," Gakushuu thinks, "we have to find Aguri."

"We can find Akari," Horibe says, "although she's a famous actress now and knows neither of us."

"Or my father," Gakushuu thinks, "if Aguri was his employee, he probably has details of her address and husband. Although that poses the very obvious problem of us getting said information, and that Aguri might not have been hired yet."

"Or Reaper," Irina says, "since he was colluding with Shiro to get Koro-sensei captured. They must have been in contact somehow, but we don’t know when."

Gakushuu thinks. “Which lead should we follow?”

“All of them,” Irina replies immediately, “we’re going to need to split up. Let me train you both in the art of espionage.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well okay I'm not going to skip straight to Koro-sensei's appearance (which is the longest "part" in this fic, I might add, with a whole slew of characters that's starting to make my writing turn funny.) Let's save Itona and beat up Shiro! Poor kid, he was such a cutie. Did I do more "research" and spend yet another hour watching videos of his face? Nobody knows, not me, certainly not you.


	6. 2010

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Who are we, in this multiverse? Where are they? The plot chickens. Thickens? 
> 
> Hello again, fellow listeners, gather around as I add to the mix More Plot Points and Problems. MP3. If you follow this timeline I just realized I made the 3-E class 2000 kids which is... so tiny, oh my god, they're so small. THEY'RE SO YOUNG

**2010**

The first thing they buy, when they touch down in Japan, are phones. The second thing is a motel room. 

“I’ll leave you boys to it,” Irina says, “remember, if you lose contact with me, wait at the third gate in the second terminal in New York’s JFK airport. If I fail to show up by 1st June, presume I’m dead and time travel without me.”

“Don’t say that,” Asano makes a face.

“Fact’s facts,” Irina winks, oddly cheerful with the grim topic at hand. “Have fun.” When she leaves, Itona flops down on the carpet, and Asano sits across him. “Let’s make a plan,” he says.

Haruna Mase is incredibly hard to find. Kayano Kaede doesn't exist yet. Akari Yukimura, on the other hand, lives in a nice, nondescript apartment with her elder sister, three train stops away from their motel.

“We should do something about my hair,” Itona says quietly. 

“Hm?” says Asano, “oh, yeah, right. And she said something about my eyes?” 

Which is why Itona is hunched over in the bathtub as Asano rubs cheap dye into his scalp. “You don’t look too bad as a brunet,” Asano teases, but there’s an undercurrent of genuine compliment that makes Itona flush a little. Asano doesn’t look too bad himself, with blue contacts in. Kind of like Irina, actually, with the blonde hair and blue eyes, who know they were such a killer combo?

“Good luck,” Asano says, and he takes the bus down to his own estate. The plan for him was fairly simple, break into his own house, which he should know the layout of fairly well, and the habits of the occupants which would keep him unnoticed as he sneaks around. Itona himself is stepping into unknown territory, pretending to be a new neighbor that just moved in and hopefully start some small talk about jobs or whatever.

He, a novice, attempting to fool an acting prodigy? Maybe Asano should have taken his place instead, he was a master at pretending to be a nice person when he was a mean asshole, after all.

Come to think of it, Asano wasn’t  _ too  _ bad. Sure, he was a bully, but most of the circumstances were against him as it were them, and if his own father had messed up principles and ran Kunugigaoka like a tight ship, Itona could only imagine the amount of pressure Asano had been under.

This wasn’t sympathize with Asano time. Itona knows he’s only thinking this much about it because it had been Asano’s idea to launch this whole heist and Itona still has 0 clue what his motivations were. Asano was still the same annoying smartass who thinks he knows better, who probably wanted to figure out the secret of class 3-E and laugh at Itona having to stoop so low to chase the vague concept of power and run after Shiro. 

Itona, standing in front of an apartment building, double checks he has the right address. Pretend to play the part. Easy in theory, but he was going up against a master at the game, even if she was 10. He has to have a perfect cover story. Which apartment block would he say he was in? Did they even have any apartment blocks open for rent?   
He sends Asano a quick text. Asano replies, “figure it out.”

Bitch. Must be the blonde-hair-blue-eyes combo.  “Fuck you,” Itona types.

“Fuck you,” comes the reply, “we might have a pretty big problem.”

“What is the problem?”

“Nothing you should be worried about now. Focus.”

Itona furrows his brow. “I still need a cover.”

“Fine, find somewhere and wait for me. I’ll come over in a while.”

Asano was going to be insufferable about this. But he had the easiest job of them all, break into his own house which he had the key for, snoop around and then memorize a phone number or address. Itona had to  _ talk.  _ And who knows what Irina was up to?

Itona turns to leave, possibly to find a cafe or something to sit down in, when he runs into someone.

Clouds parted, angels sang, it’s Aguri Yukimura! She looks even more like Akari in real life.  “I’m so sorry!” says Aguri. Itona helps her gather her papers and balance her water bottle, and notice that the strap of her bag has broken, which is… great, actually.

“I apologize, I didn’t see you there,” Itona says, “I broke your bag.”

“Oh, this old thing?” Aguri laughs, “it was loose, anyways. Thank you for your help.”

“Do you live here?” Itona says, nodding towards the building. “I’ll help you carry these inside, since I broke your bag.”

“No need!” Aguri says, “you looked like you were in a hurry.”

“I was supposed to meet up with a friend, but he’s not here yet,” Itona says, which is technically a truth. “It’s no trouble, it’s the least I could do.”

“Thank you, then,” Aguri says graciously, “I just live on the second floor.” She leads the way, and Itona falls into step next to her. 

“These are a lot of papers,” Itona says, unsure how to start conversation,

“Oh, I’m a teacher, these are my student’s worksheets,” Aguri says.

“Oh,” says Itona, “where do you teach?”

“At Kouryou Junior High, for now, as a substitute teacher actually,” Aguri says, “but I’m looking to apply elsewhere to further my career opportunities.”

“How about Kunugigaoka?” Itona suggests, because it can’t be ruining the future if that’s what’s supposed to happen, anyways. This must be the problem Asano was talking about, he couldn’t find any details about Aguri if she had yet to be employed. “I was actually a student there, for Middle School.”

“Oh!” Aguri says, “oh, well, Kunugigaoka is so prestigious, I doubt they’ll even think of accepting me.”

“You should try, anyways,” Itona says.

“Thank you for the suggestion,” Aguri says, “how about you? Are you in high school?”

“Last year of,” Itona says, “I’m thinking of furthering my studies in electrical engineering.”

“Are you going to become a scientist?” Aguri sounds interested, “my fiance is actually a scientist himself. Although he works in biology.”

“That’s cool,” Itona says, mentally fist-pumping the air, “what is his research about?”

“Not too sure on the specifics,” Aguri laughs a little nervously.

“I’m considering an internship in a lab somewhere,” Itona lies, “would your fiance be interested in hiring an intern? I understand biology and electrical engineering aren’t very related fields but I would really love an opportunity to work on a big research project and to broaden my skill set.” He feels like Asano now, but maybe Aguri’s compassion as a teacher might work in his favor.

“I don’t know,” Aguri says, “but I guess it wouldn’t hurt to ask?”

Itona brightens up. “Really? Thank you! Is there any way I could get in contact, perhaps a phone number or an email address?”

Which is how Itona gets contact information hastily scribbled on a post-it note, and he’s out the door.  “I did it,” he texts Asano. Take that. They meet in a cafe and Itona says, “what’s the problem?” as he slides into the seat across him.

“Well I didn’t manage to get anything on Aguri,” Asano starts.

“She’s not employed at Kunugigaoka yet,” Itona explains, sliding the post-it across. “Here’s the lab email and phone number. I couldn't get a physical address.”

Asano eyes it with slight awe. “Nice. We’ll await Irina’s return, then. The problem at hand is much bigger than your rescue, I’m afraid. Remember my alternate timeline theory?”

“Which you said you proved,” Itona points out.

Asano winces. “Yeah, there’s more to it. This timeline is the same as the one we affected.”

What? “Sorry?” Itona says.

“Remember four years ago, I saved Ikeda from killing himself?” Asano says, “well, this is the same as that timeline. That is, in this universe, Ikeda is very much alive.”

“How do you figure that?” Itona says.

“I may have run into, uh, myself?” Asano makes a face. “He’s best friends with Ikeda here which is, fucking weird, actually, but that also means he’s heard stories of Ikeda being saved from suicide by someone who looks uncannily like him and put two and two together.”

“Oh, that’s,” Itona wrinkles his nose, “weird. So you told him?”

“A little bit, to get the kid off my back and not call the cops,” Asano says, “but that’s not the real issue, we actually have two. The first is that if we’re travelling through the same alternate timeline this whole while, what’s to say that we can make it back home when we hit 2018? The device might transport us to the 2018 of this alternate timeline, not our own.” 

That  _ was _ a very big problem. “What’s the other one?”

“Assuming that we’ve been in the same timeline this entire while,” Asano says, “we were in this universe’s 2006, 2002, and 1998. And in 1998, we ran into Koro-sensei and Reaper. Now there’s an off chance that they wouldn’t recognize us, but we stood out pretty much and even Irina said that we probably had been noticed. This wouldn’t be much of an issue, really, except that if they happen to remember us from 1998, and they see us now, they’re bound to be suspicious.”

“And Irina went to meet them,” Itona realizes, “and if they remember her…”

“That means she’s in bigger trouble than we thought,” Asano says.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I couldn't resist.


	7. 2010

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again kiddos, looks like another update! This chapter is a little... odd. I apologize.

**2010**

Connections were everything, and in this age and time, Irina would have none. The 16 year old Irina of this time would probably have a nice number of assassinations under her belt by now, but there’s no way Irina can latch onto that, given the fact that she looks nothing like when she was 16 anymore. 

She decides to do what she does best, assassinate someone. It’s rather easy to search up anonymous job offers on the dark web, she looks for a job already taken up by someone else, and crashes it. Kills the target before they do, and sits on the hotel bed sipping champagne.

The door opens, and room service slides in. Then room service draws a gun at her, and Irina raises her eyebrows, unimpressed.

“This gig was mine,” says someone who Irina had met maybe twice whose name she doesn’t quite remember, “who are you?”

Irina doesn’t answer. “Let’s make a deal,” she says.

“A deal?” Room Service says, “explain.”

“Help me get in touch with Reaper,” Irina says, “this kill is yours.”

“Reaper?” Room Service scoffs, “no one can find him. And what makes you think I want handouts from you, little lady?”

“The price attached to this head is pretty high, isn’t it?” Irina baits, “you won’t even have to waste a single bullet. I just need you to point me in the right direction.”

Room Service seems to consider this for a moment, then, sighs. Irina gets a name, which gets her an address, which gets her to several more places, and eventually someone hears rumors or rumors about Reaper making a stop to kill a minor politician in the States, and Irina’s off.

She’s virtually uncontactable by this point, but it’s for her own safety, really. She doesn’t need any distractions or contacts to be used as leverage against her, and Asano and Itona can handle themselves.  

Luckily for Irina, she knows what human Koro-sensei looks like, and what his weaknesses are. Namely, her girls. There’s a party in a high class cocktail lounge and Irina puts on her brightest red lipstick and her lowest cut dress, and saunters around. Eventually current-Reaper wanders in, little white-haired future-Reaper at his heels and looking around with wide-eyes like he’d never seen women before. All the best for her, she supposes.

It takes an embarrassingly short time to capture Koro-sensei’s attention, and she should really stop calling him Koro-sensei in her head. That name is already attached to an image of a perverted yellow octopus.

Just under an hour later she’s giggling and swaying pretend-drunkenly and brushing up all against human Koro-sensei, who looks close to passing out. Reaper is sulking in a corner and nursing what seems to be a gin. 

“Let’s go somewhere more private,” Irina whispers.

Which is when she finds herself pressed against the wall with ropes digging at her wrists and ankles, and not even in a sexy way. “Let go of me!” She rages.

“Thinking you could fool me, a master assassin?” Koro-sensei leers. God, he sounds exactly the same. “Now now, I’m not so easily duped.”

“Almost were,” future-Reaper says boredly. Koro-sensei shoots him an irritated look. 

"What gave me away?" Irina says calmly, because Koro-sensei loved psychoanalyzing things, and talking shit. 

"You knew what you wanted the moment you saw me," Koro-sensei says, hopping on the bed. "And I would be flattered, but you're armed. The fabric of your dress shifted around your weapons, of course an untrained eye wouldn't be able to catch that."

“What, you mean these babies?” Irina puffs her chest, making her breasts bounce. Koro-sensei stares, enraptured, and future-Reaper shoots her an annoyed look, sips at his alcohol, and frowns at it.

“Are you even old enough to drink?” Irina looks at him. 

“I’m 21!” He defends.  

Irina squints at him. He looks so  _ young _ . And he kind of has a cute face, but too bad he’s a  _ bitch _ . 

Koro-sensei sprawls on a chair, spinning a pistol with his fingers. “Who are you and what do you want from me?”

Irina decides to take a risk. If this pre-3E version of Koro-sensei was anything like the Koro-sensei she knows, and evidently he was, personality wise that is, he wouldn’t be able to resist testing the aptitude of his students, and this baby version of Reaper should be much easier to handle. “I’m actually here for him,” Irina says, looking straight at Reaper, “he has something I want.”

Koro-sensei laughs loud. “Do you, my little apprentice?”

Reaper eyes her with wariness. “I don’t know who you are,” he says.

Irina grins sharply. “Not yet.”

“How fun!” Koro-sensei says, “you know what, I’ll leave you two to it, then. Find out what she wants, kid.” 

Reaper frowns at Koro-sensei’s back as he casually walks out of the hotel room, and Irina desperately racks her brain for his weaknesses. There’s no way to beat him in hand to hand combat, but what was his fatal flaw? His Achilles heel? The lack of acknowledgement and recognition from his master that he so very much craved?

“I have a proposal for you,” Irina says.

“Cut to the chase,” Reaper says boredly.

“I know everything about you,” Irina says, “you like flowers.”

This throws him off. “Huh?”

“Roses, to be precise,” Irina says wistfully, “you think they’re beautiful, but violent. When their petals are crushed it reminds you of blood… and you watched Reaper assassinate your father from  your bedroom window.”

There’s a gun trained on her now, which means she’s actively perceived as a threat. Good. “You also like begonias,” she says, grinning, “and baby’s breath.”

“You said you had a proposal,” Reaper hisses. He cocks the gun.

“You hate sunflowers,” Irina continues, “you think they’re tacky. And you’ve always wanted to be acknowledged for your skill and work by your master but he will never, ever see you.”

“Who are you? Why are you here?” Reaper demands. He stalks up to her and shoves the gun under her chin.

“Hey now, keep your hands to yourself,” Irina says. Reaper glares harder, and Irina feels the clock ticking down.

“You’re just a tool to him,” Irina taunts, “a knife to be sharpened. Has he ever looked at you? Talked to you, like you were a person? Acknowledged you? Have you ever heard a single word of praise from him? You are nothing to him, in his eyes, you are not his student, his apprentice. You are his  _ weapon _ .”   
The grip on the gun tightens.

“I can help you with that,” Irina says.

Reaper stares at her for a long time, emotion in his eyes so desperate that she doesn’t see from the Reaper of her time, this man barely a boy who has yet to lose his yearning for acknowledgement. Finally he says, in the softest of voices that it cracks slightly at the end, “how?”

“There is a man,” Irina says, “he goes by the alias Shiro.” 

There’s no recognition on Reaper’s face, which means this whole trip was a waste of time. She’s hoping Asano and Itona’s search had slightly more fruitful results. 

Shiro means white in Japan, and while it would narrow down Reaper’s search to that country but without knowing what he’s looking for, it would be impossible to find him. She knows that Reaper sees nothing but truth in her eyes, and very slowly the gun lowers from her chin.

“How do I know you’re telling the truth?” Reaper says, but Irina already knows she’s got him convinced.

“You will,” Irina says.

“What’s your name?” Reaper asks.

Irina doesn’t tell him. She smiles.

Reaper hesitates.

“Have you ever made a mistake in front of him?” Irina asks. “Do you believe me? Do you think he is your teacher, or your puppeteer? Maybe I’m wrong, maybe he does appreciate you, but have you missed a step in front of him? If he cannot look you in the eyes if you make one mistake, has he ever looked at you at all?”

The ropes get cut in one smooth motion, and she rubs her wrist. Reaper glares at her with splotchy red cheeks.

“We’ll meet again,” Irina says, because it’s technically the truth.

“I’ll find you,” Reaper says. Irina sends a little prayer to the Irina of this time, because there’s no doubt their paths will eventually cross, and then she’s gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As it should be fairly obvious by now, I am severely lacking in experience on writing action scenes :( If you think this fic is one whole writing exercise for me, you're right. I told myself "gwen, this is Action Only" and I'm currently trying to talk myself out of rom-com-ing the hell out of the next few chapters. Anyways I am but an amateur so if you have suggestions/advice for writing action scenes or any prompts to let me practice ;) shoot them out! Haha did you see what I did there I said shoot like a gun-


	8. 2010

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :O

**2010**

“Mission’s a bust,” Irina’s voice says, “Reaper knows nothing about Shiro- well, he does now, because I told him he exists, hey, not like I had a choice! He had me at gunpoint.”

“Gunpoint?” Gakushuu demands. “Are you alright?”

“Fine, fine,” Irina says, “Everything still in one piece, but that means I learnt nothing new from my end, well, other than the fact that our dear Koro-sensei still really likes boobs. How are things going?”

Gakushuu winces. “It’s a long story. We’ll talk when you get here. Where are you now?”

“Brazil,” Irina says breezily, “a couple of flights to switch around, got to erase all evidence of my existence, you know, especially with Koro-sensei and Reaper on my tail. I’ll be with you in three days.”

“Fine,” Gakushuu says, “bye.” He hangs up and makes a face at the phone.

“Well?” Horibe says, fiddling with his across him. “What did she say?”

“She’ll be with us in three days,” Gakushuu tells him, “want to get some food?”

Horibe looks up sharply at him.”What?” He sounds accusing.

“We’ve barely got time to breathe these couple of years,” Gakushuu jokes. “Although we do eat pretty much every hour or so, I’m _starving._ ”

Horibe inclines his head. “Aren’t you some arrogant workaholic who should be ordering me to start planning for our rescue?”

Gakushuu quirks a smile at that. “Do I give you that impression?”

“Yeah,” Horibe says. Gakushuu supposes he can’t fault him, he was that high-strung in middle school, after all. But high school life had been far less pressure on him, with his father’s sudden change of heart and the oddly functional friendship he has with Akabane coming into play, he thinks he’s learnt to be slightly less hard on himself, and others. He’d even called Seo his friend the other day. Or in a few years, or whatever.

“Well?” Gakushuu says, “anything you’re craving, after jumping through so many leap years?”

Horibe’s expression goes a little nostalgic. “I kind of want shitty ramen."

"Shitty ramen?" Gakushuu laughs, but he gets it. He has a strange craving for his father's cooking, although the one thing that man can't do is cook anything edible for his life. "One of your 3-E classmates' parents owns a ramen shop."

Horibe looks at him in surprise. "You know that?"

"I do my research," Gakushuu tells him. It's true that he did extensively search up on the 3-E members in attempts to uncover their secrets all those years ago, but he had also considered it his duty as student council president to ensure the welfare of his fellow schoolmates and made sure they did not die. You know, follow school rules and listen to him but also not die, and that includes keeping tabs on them after school hours. Which had been fairly easy given that most of Kunugigaoka was, if he dare say, nerds and just studied a lot. Trying to wrangle Akabane had been a nightmare. "We'll have to go ib disguise," Gakushuu says.

Horibe tugs at his hair. "Dye's not coming off soon."

And so they find themselves at Matsuraiken, and Gakushuu tries his best to not spit out the noodles as Horibe slurps at it with what seems to be genuine enjoyment.

"This sucks," Gakushuu whispers angrily, because he's still polite enough to make sure the owners don't hear it.

"I know," Horibe says happily.

Gakushuu sighs and pushes his bowl away. At least one of them was getting their fill, he supposes, he'll just drop by somewhere and get some fast food.

"Tell me about you," Horibe says much later, when it's Gakushuu's turn on his burger and Horibe is slowly stealing fries that Gakushuu pretends to not notice.

"What?" Gakushuu says.

"The you in this time," Horibe clarifies, oh! "You ran into yourself. What is that like?"

"You'll find out," Gakushuu says, "very surreal. Apparently the Kunugigaoka of this time doesn't have a ranking system." Which, Gakushuu honestly isn't sure how he feels about that. He still has no doubt he'll be the best student among all of them, but has Ikeda really changed his father this much?

"Neat," Horibe says.

"Hm," says Gakushuu. He's thinking about it now, the light and cheerful persona that this version of himself has, raised to be a "good" person as opposed to a "strong" one and becoming both. Gakushuu doesn't remember his own wide-eyed trust when he was 10, already striving to be superior and regarding people as either subordinates or opponents.

Horibe kicks him. "Your sulking is making my fries soggy," he complains.

" _Your_ fries?" Gakushuu says, "and you talk about soggy fries when you willingly ate watery flour?"

Horibe shrugs like that's fair. Then, "what else?"

Right. "Apparently I have a dog now. Which was what gave me away."

Horibe grins a little. "What kind was it?"

"Shiba Inu," Gakushuu says, "very yappy."

"That's cute," Horibe says, then his expression turns a little sad. Gakushuu lets him wallow with his emotions for a while longer, then kicks him this time.

"Your sulking is making my burger soggy," he says.

" _Your_ burger?" Horibe says, which makes no sense. Then he says, "I'm just thinking about what would happen to the me of this time when we get him away from Shiro. I wouldn't want to go back."

Gakushuu doesn't ask. He finishes his burger, says, "let's take a walk," and they do, and they don't say anything during it, which is perfectly fine with both of them.

Much later, when Irina comes back, she collapses on the bed and sleeps half a day away. Gakushuu and Horibe let her, keeping their voices low and not doing much else. When they get back from dinner with a takeout box, she’s awake and seated on the bed staring at the device in her hands. “You know,” she says, “where I got this from?”

“No,” Horibe answers. He sits on the bed across her, and Gakushuu settles in next to him.

“I was on a mission,” she says, “to hunt down a rogue assassin. He was my old associate who went mad and dropped off the grid years prior, when I caught up to him he told me that this thangading was the most wretched in the world and that I could never let it fall into the wrong hands, especially not of any corrupt government.” She turns the device in her hands. “As you know, I don’t have too much trust in any government body either, so I decided to take his advice instead of surrendering this in as evidence. But I could never figure out what it did, so I didn’t know the best course of action to handle it.”

She looks up. “I’m saying this because now, more than just us knows about this dingothing and what it does. This universe’s version of Asano does, and very soon this version of Itona will. I trust them, but there are alot of people out there who would do lots of damage with this, and we’re meddling into the lives of very powerful people like Shiro and Reaper. We need to prepare for the consequences.”

Gakushuu and Horibe stay silent, taking in the weight of her words. Irina looks at the device for a moment longer, then stretches and tucks it away in the bag, then says, “did you guys get me food?”

“Oh, yeah,” Gakushuu says. “Some udon from the place down the street. Want to watch me drown Horibe in brown dye again? His roots are showing. He sounds like a wet cat being dunked in water, it’s kind of funny.”

“I do _not_ ,” Horibe mutters. Irina giggles.   

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A teeny weeny bit of filler before we kick into some more plot movement. This fic is rushing so quickly we all need a little time to breathe and so do they, and Shiro's lab isn't teleporting away anytime soon.  
> Or is it?  
> Nope, it's not. Haha. So how is it so far? Good? Bad? Terrible? Terrific?


	9. 2012

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is such a... longer chapter than the previous few. So much "plot" happens here, so many things to unpack.

**2012**

Asano plays the part of a mean spirited rich person very well, and two phone calls later as Rich Person Interested In Unethical Lab Research For His Own Gain, he has an address to Shiro's lab and an appointment next Tuesday. Which, of course, won't come to any deal.

"You're good at pretending to be an evil businessman," Itona says, slightly impressed.

" _Pretending?_ " Asano mutters, but he looks pleased.

"Well boys," Irina says, "let's get this show on the road."

Aguri has a day job and the the plan was to implicate her as little as possible, and also the off chance she might recognize Itona, so Asano waltzes on the fine Tuesday morning, and scientists scramble everywhere in hysterics.

"Nice to meet you, Mr Tanaka," Shiro says, smiling the widest grin possible.

"Dr Yanagisawa, was it?" Asano says pleasantly. He cleans up nice, Itona thinks. He starts rattling off marketing terms in quick succession and talking about business models and profit margins and whatnot that the scientists around him look confused, and it seems to go over Shiro's head as he frantically nods and pretends to understand what Asano is saying.

"So," Asano pauses as the scientists try to catch their breaths, "what's the dream here?"

Shiro straightens up. "Come, let me show you." He and his posse of scientists lead Asano down a hallway, leaving a very disgruntled receptionist by himself at the counter.

It takes Irina a minute to distract him and another to put him out of commission, and then Itona walks in the door after she gives him a thumbs up through the glass. "How are the security cameras looking?" She says, propping up the unconscious receptionist so he looks like he's just fallen asleep at the table.

"Looping the same footage of this empty lobby every fifteen minutes," Itona says.

"Awesome," says Irina, "so where were you?"

"I don't remember this place," Itona admits, "I was mostly relegated to my room and the laboratory."

"Well Asano is here, so I doubt they'll be experimenting on you, so let's check the dormitories," she says. Irina goes behind the counter and taps on the laptop. "The west section, yeesh. We're at the east section now. Alright, let's go."

They enter a storage room and don two lab coats, Irina putting her hair up and slipping on glasses, and Itona combing his still-brown hair flat. They hardly run into anyone on the way, except two frazzled scientists wondering what in the world was a "A Lonely Island Lost In The Middle Of A Foggy Sea" cocktail and how they hell they were supposed to make one of those, which meant that Asano was doing an excellent job at keeping everyone busy.

The dormitories were familiar to Itona and he practically runs up the stairs and stops in front of his old room, feeling tightness around his chest. He just had too many memories associated with this place, some amazing and some terrible - okay, mostly terrible. But he had lived here for the better part of five years.

"Go on," Irina says.

Itona knocks. There's a shuffling on the other side of the door and a miniature version of him opens, and squints up at him in confusion. "I thought Shiro said there was some fancy business guy coming and I wasn't allowed to leave," he says.

Itona doesn't say a word. Was this him when he was 10? He was so small, so fragile, why would Shiro take him in?

"Hey, Itona, right?" Irina says, and Itona startles but sees that she's talking to the younger version of him. "There's been a change of plans, we're going out for a bit. Want to go put on your shoes?"

"Kay," says little-Itona. He emerges again with his shoes on and Irina smiles and takes his hand. They walk down the corridor the same way they came, Irina humming a little tune, when they walk smack right into Shiro.

“Hey!” Shiro says, “where are you taking him?!”

Immediately, little-Itona pulls away from Irina, looking betrayed. “Who are you?”

Behind Shiro, Asano looks panicked. Then he clears his throat and says loudly like the world has personally offended him, “who is _that_?”

Shiro jumps. “Nobody!” He says quickly to Asano, “I- hey! Get back here!”

Itona picks up the little version of himself, kicking and screaming, and runs, Irina hot on his heels. They hear Asano yelling and “demanding an explanation” behind them, and Shiro trying to placate him, but there are other labcoats chasing them now. “Let go of me!” Little-Itona says, and bites down hard on Itona’s arm.

“You little shit,” Itona grits his teeth, “shut up before you make the worst decision for the rest of your life.” 

Miraculously, little-Itona does. They sprint past the unconscious receptionist and Irina slides into the driver’s seat of Asano’s car. Itona throws himself, or himselves, into the backseat, and immediately they’re driving off. Which is another frantic ride in itself, because Irina drives like a madwoman.

“Who are you people?” Little-Itona says.

Itona knows himself well enough to know that he's a stubborn little brat and lying would get them nowhere. He supposes there’s no believable explanation other than the truth, but even that is a stretch. "I'm you from an alternate universe," he says, "I'm here to stop you from making the worst mistake of your life."

"You mean Dr Yanagisawa?" Little-Itona says, "he promised he'll make me strong.”

"That's a lie," Itona says sharply, "you know he doesn't care about you, he's just using you for his own gains. The moment his plans fail, he’ll abandon you too, just like everyone else did.”

In the reflection, Irina winces. Itona divulges as much of the truth as he thinks he can: the inhumane and unethical experiments Shiro put him through, altering his DNA and stripping away his humanity, sedating him like an animal, and when it all went wrong, leaving him to die. He doesn’t talk about Koro-sensei, of course, because that would be stupid.

Eventually, little-Itona says in the softest of voices, “but I have nowhere else to go.”

Itona knows that. “We’ll figure something out,” he promises.

Then later, after Asano yells at them for and complains about the lack of taxi service in a remote laboratory area in the mountains and that he had to sit in a car with Shiro and be angry at him, he says, “I have a solution to your,” he gestures to little-Itona who’s eyeing him distrustfully, “problem.”

“Well, what is it?” Irina says, tapping her foot

Asano winces. “Me, actually.” Which brings them to this very awkward meeting in a Macdonald’s, 10 year olds little-Itona and little-Asano munching happily on their meals, and Asano viciously staring down one Rikuto Ikeda, shifting nervously in his seat. Itona knows what it’s like to be at the receiving end of that stare. He feels sympathy for Ikeda, almost.

“You’re going to say you found that little brat in a ditch,” Asano says, sounding very much like the evil businessman he was in Shiro’s lab, “and that he has no relatives to speak of.”

“I have relatives,” little-Itona speaks up.

“I’m sorry, did you want to go to them instead?” Asano says, and little-Itona sulks. Little-Asano glares with a less effective version of his older counterpart’s death stare and says, very plainly, “you’re mean.”

‘I wonder whose fault that is,” Asano drawls. Across him, Ikeda gulps nervously and sinks further in his seat.

Irina looks between them, vibrating with amusement. “This is like watching a real life soap opera,” she whispers to Itona.

“Stop that,” little-Asano scolds.

“Fine,” Asano says, but he sounds fond. Itona finds himself watching his younger self, and he kind of understands now, just a little bit more, about why Irina and Asano would chose to save him.

“You’re going back to your universe now?” Says little-Itona, chewing on his bottom lip. Itona pats his hair and smiles.

“Maybe in the future, you can invent a working time machine and come meet me.”

“Okay,” little-Itona says, then, “thanks.”

Itona says, “good luck with the rest of your life.” He goes to join Irina and Asano, who are watching him with soft looks, and they put the device between them and join arms.

“2014, here we come,” Irina cheers. Itona doesn’t turn back to look at his younger self. He flicks the switch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did I google "long ridiculous cocktail names" for this story? Yes, yes I did. Does my internet browser history think I am an alcoholic? Yes, yes it does.


	10. 2014

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another time-jump! Welcome to year 2014!  
> I feel like I never did make it clear, but I set the class 3-E happenings in year 2015/2016, as the anime debuted on TV in Japan in 2015 (or at least according to Wikipedia). So year 2014 would be one year before the happenings of class 3-E. Can you all see where I'm going with this? Yes, yes you can.

**2014**

“Should we get new phones?” Irina asks.

“We’ll be here for an hour,” Asano says, “it’s fine.”

“Something always happens in that hour,” Irina reasons, “and we stayed in the past for two weeks the other time.” 

“Well, unless we have someone to rescue again, I don’t see why we need to waste any more time,” Asano sighs. “Do you think we’ll make it to our universe, or will it just spit us back out in the alternate universe?’

“Which universe are we in now?” Irina asks. 

“Let’s find out,” Itona says.  

They do buy one phone, and rent another motel room for the privacy and quiet. Asano dials the number to his house’s landline and sets the phone on speaker.

“Asano residence,” says the person on the other end of the line, “Itona speaking.”

“That answers our question,” Asano says.

“Who is this?” Alternate-Itona says.

“Remember us? 4 years ago, busted you out of Yanagisawa’s lab, I was an evil businessman?” Asano says.

“Oh my god,” Alternate-Itona says, “give me a moment.” There’s a rustling sound, footsteps, and on the other end of the line there’s a faint “Gakushuu! Shuu! You’ll never guess who is calling!”

Asano turns to look at Itona, eyebrow raised. “Shuu?”

Itona throws his hand up in a don’t-look-at-me! motion just as another voice joins the conversation. “Oh my god, it’s mean-me,” says Alternate-Asano.

“Shut up, brat,” Asano says. 

“Let’s catch up,” says Alternate-Asano, very much still as authoritative as actual Asano, “Meet us at the cafe on fifth that sells the- oh, I’ll text you the address on this number. See you in half an hour!”

“Cute,” Irina says, as the call cuts. Asano glares at her.

The difference between the four is alarming. Irina briefly thinks of her own counterpart, wondering if her path would have changed any, then decides not to dwell on it as they’ll be out of this time soon enough and she won’t find out. The alternate universe versions of Asano and Itona are best friends which is really, really weird, but kind of cute. Makes her think about hope and possibilities, or something.

“It’d be our last year of middle school next year,” alternate-Asano is saying, “I don’t know what to say about the ranking system you guys have. I’m glad we don’t have that. That’s honestly fucked up.”

“Tch, yeah,” Asano says, “be grateful that this version of your father isn’t psycho.”

Alternate-Asano shoots him a sharp look. Then, “what goes on in the last year of middle school? I’m assuming that since all of you exist, the world doesn’t blow up or anything. How did you meet Miss Jelavic?”

Irina’s about to say “don’t call me Jelavic”, or maybe she’s about to say “of course the world doesn’t blow up, stupid”, or maybe she was about to say “we actually met in class 3-E where I was an assassin sent by the government to kill Koro-sensei”, but she doesn’t say any of that, and Asano and Itona realize the same things she does at the same time.

“Oh fuck,” says Asano.

“ _ Koro-sensei _ ,” says Itona.

“Who’s that?” Alternate-Itona says, looking interested. 

Irina exchanges looks with Asano and Itona. “That,” she says, “is a very big problem.”

“So you’re saying,” alternate-Asano says, after the most summarized version of an explanation they could give that still takes the better part of an hour, “that Yanagisawa was supposed to turn Itochan into the same kind of octopus creature that this…  _ Koro-sensei  _ was?”

“But we prevented that,” says Asano. Makes a face.

“What’s stopping him from doing the... thing, to this universe’s Koro-sensei?”

“That’s the problem,” Irina says, “nothing. For all we know, Koro-sensei could be sitting in a lab right now, turning into a super-creature, and one year from now the earth will blow up, and 3-E won’t be there to stop it.” 

Alternate-Itona looks aghast. “I don’t want Yukimura-sensei to die.”

“She won’t,” Alternate-Asano says firmly, “because we’ll stop it. You’ll help us assassinate Koro-sensei, right mean-me?”

“Are you insane?” says Asano.

“Or we could stop Shiro before he turns Koro-sensei into an octopus super-creature,” Alternate-Asano says, “you broke into his lab once, you can do it again.” 

“The same plan’s not going to work again,” Irina says, “but getting back into the lab is our best bet. We’re not going to be able to stand up against Koro-sensei as a super-creature, but we can stop Shiro while everyone’s still human.”

“His lab’s going to be better guarded, especially with our previous break-in and the top secret project he has going on now,” Asano says.

“Not to mention the traps he set up to stop Koro-sensei that ended up killing Aguri,” Itona points out, “we need more firepower, but we don’t have a whole class of assassins.”

“How about one more?” Alternate-Asano says. He leans in and whispers into Asano’s ear.

And Asano immediately pulls away, incredulity on his face. “Seriously?  _ Him _ ?”

“We’re friends,” Alternate-Asano says, crossing his arms, “you know him, you know how good he is.”

Asano mutters a few choice words to himself but Irina doesn’t have to wonder more because he slams his hands on the table and says, “ _ fine  _ then, call Karma Akabane. Your taste in friends is atrocious.”

“But you can't say that because you don’t have any friends,” Itona tells him. Asano kicks him under the table.

“We should warn Yukimura-sensei,” Alternate-Itona says, “so she doesn’t get hurt.”

“Akari,” Itona says, eyes lighting up, “we need her.”

“She’s good,” Irina recalls, “a lot of physical and stunt training already from her movies. She’ll come on board if it means saving her sister.”

"Oh, Akari Yukimura?" Alternate-Asano says, "we met her twice when she and Yukimura-sensei went for lunch. What do you mean movies?"

"Oh, you didn't know?" Asano says.

The plan was as follows: Alternate-Asano and Itona were to bring, willingly or unwillingly but hopefully willingly, Akari Yukimura into their plan. Alternate-Asano was to bring Karma abroad, which his older counterpart was still making a face at. Asano was going to recall and sketch out the floorplan of the lab as much as possible, Itona was going to recall and list out things he knows about Shiro as much as possible, and Irina needed to strategize and figure out where Reaper is. 

"We don't need him interfering with our plans," Irina says, "if the timeline matches, and the fact that I told him about Shiro 4 years ago, they should be in contact about now. I'm going to have to find a way to pull him out of the picture if I can."

"Don't get held at gunpoint again," Asano scolds.

And her alternate self? There was a pretty big chance Reaper made good on his promise and tracked her down, in which case they might be working together or she might be dead. That's a bridge she hopes she wouldn't have to cross.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really do love complicating things, do I?


	11. 2014

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome my good people

**2014**

Gakushuu's part of the plan is rather simple, and with his near perfect memory, he has the floorplan of Shiro's laboratory sketched out on a large sheet of paper. Horibe is next to him, hunched over the paper chewing on the end of a pencil, making markings of the places he'd been and where Koro-sensei was likely to have been experimented on.

On one of the twin beds of the hotel room, Alternate-Gakushuu and Alternate-Horibe are sprawled out with their heads together, drafting a text to send to both their versions of Akari and Karma. 

"This is stupid," Gakushuu says, because he's honestly tired of watching himself, even if it was some sickeningly noble and  _ nice  _ version of him, cosy up to Horibe. "Can't you two just go and get them personally?"

"But I wouldn't believe it if someone sprung all that information on me in real life," Alternate-Gakushuu says.

"And you decided typing an essay where they can judge you over the phone is the next best idea?" Gakushuu deadpans, and next to him Horibe snickers. "Just bring them here."

"Hm," says alternate-Gakushuu. "You'll just scare them away."

"They'll have to meet me eventually," Gakushuu points out. 

"Fair enough," alternate-Gakushuu says. He says something softly to alternate-Horibe and they both  _ giggle _ .

"Leave!" Gakushuu yells. How dare they be affectionate in his presence. And call each other  _ Shuu  _ and  _ Itochan _ ? Nicknames from when “we were 10, jesus mean-me, you introduced us, you can’t hold this over my head.” Disgusting.

"Bye mean-me," says alternate-Gakushuu. Snarky little shit. When they shut the door behind them, Horibe relaxes and stretches his legs.

"Nice to that you have the potential to be nice," Horibe says.

"Don't push it," Gakushuu growls. But he admits to himself it's rather… refreshing, in a weird way. This 14 year old Gakushuu is still as intelligent and as sassy as he had been, but he was also just a little childish the way 14 year olds were supposed to be; both he and Horibe are, in fact. A version of themselves where they could be normal children. He distantly wonders what happened to the Irina of this time.

"-kind of cute," Horibe is saying, and Gakushuu realizes he had been speaking.

"Sorry?" Gakushuu says.

Horibe turns a little pink. "Nevermind," he mumbles, then says louder, "I think our biggest problem is getting out, because of all those traps in the way that ended up killing Aguri. Koro-sensei could barely avoid them with his Mach 20 Speed, and we don't even know what kind of traps there were, which means we don't stand the slightest of a chance hoping to escape with the the defense system enabled."

Gakushuu frowns down at his sketches. "It's been 4 years and with the break-in, there's a high chance he would have remodeled for security if anything, so these plans might not even be useful."

Horibe is silent for a while, tapping his pencil thoughtfully, then he says, "why don't you go find out, Mr Tanaka?"

Gakushuu looks at him. "Are you insane? He's not going to fall for the same thing twice."

"Your cover wasn't blown," Horibe points out.

"I dropped off the grid the moment your heist succeeded," Gakushuu says. But then he thinks for a moment. "That  _ was  _ some sketchy business so it makes perfect sense if I do not wish to be associated with it after a failure of a meeting and remain uncontactable. However if I did hear of, say, a potentially more  _ profitable  _ project coming along, and floated an anonymous offer before getting in contact…"

"That could work," Itona thinks, "where are you going to get enough money to seem, ah, convincing?"

"We have several options, really," Gakushuu says, "like the other times, we steal it. But I'm thinking we're going to need a value in the millions to even make a case, given that Yanagisawa is already wealthy enough, and without Irina here it's going to be impossible. Alternatively we sell our case to someone on our side with disposable cash, because I'm not confident in getting that million back after. And the three people I do know with that much money and are close enough to this case are Akari, Karma, and my father." Gakushuu winces. "All three are terrible options."

"Karma and Akari are both currently 14, so I doubt they have any form of legal jurisdiction over their assets," Horibe points out, "Akari might, but she's so closely linked to Shiro right now, and since he's her future brother-in-law, her finances might be monitored. That just leaves…"

"I hate this," says Gakushuu.

Horibe smiles at him sympathetically. "You'll live."

"Since the only other option is to die," Gakushuu says.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm just creating drama for the hell of it now. Is all of these necessary in the least? No?


	12. 2014

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Who hasn't given up on this mess yet? It's about to get even messier.

**2014**

Alternate-Itona, Itona very quickly realizes, is pretty much ride-or-die with alternate-Asano. And alternate-Asano is the equivalent of an evil genius on a high most of the time, which means he very readily approves of their plan for his "mean-self", or Mr Tanaka, to walk back into the jaws of death, and that Alternate-Itona very readily agrees.

"I'm not afraid to punch a kid," Asano growls. It's unclear which one of the 14 year olds he's talking to.

"I believe you," alternate-Asano says happily, "I would ask for a demonstration of your wicked entrepreneur performance but I have a feeling that the impression is spot-on." 

Itona winces for him, because he knows very well that Asano is not afraid to punch a kid. Said kid, Rukito Ikeda, is fidgeting in his seat. Itona pities him, but also not really.

"I don't want to tell him about my… attempt," Ikeda tries meekly, but he should really know he has no say in whatever decisions made by Asano by now, and Itona is pretty sure there are more ways to convince the older Asano of their identities but the younger Asano whom Itona is desperately trying not to refer to as "his Asano", has a mean streak as long as Itona's PTSD and a very, very bitter grudge. So Asano says, "convince me otherwise, then," in a tone of voice that says very clearly that there's no convincing him otherwise, and Ikeda resigns to his fate.

“I’m sorry,” alternate-Asano says sympathetically, patting Ikeda on the back, “but you asked for it. Next time, either don’t kill yourself, or succeed.”

Both of them were  _ assholes _ .

This assholery brings them to the Asano’s living room, where Principal Asano is nothing like Itona remembers at all. He has none of that creepy, asshole vibe that his younger son, correction, his younger son from  _ an alternate universe _ seems to have and he seems very strangely  _ normal _ , which is not a description Itona would have attached to the principal he knows. Next to the alternate-family, Asano seems like the Loki among a bunch of Thors.

“Hello,” Asano says coldly, as he stares Principal down and the temperature in the room drops a few degrees. “Sit down.”

Itona sits down. Perfectly in sync, alternate-Itona, alternate-Asano and Ikeda sit and straighten. Principal narrows his eyes. Asano, very evidently enjoying himself, sprawls back on the armchair he commandeered looking very much like an evil villain boss, and snaps his fingers once, which sends Ikeda spilling every detail starting from year 2002, and alternate-Asano takes over to finish the rest of the story. By the end of it all, Principal is staring slack-jawed, and his expression goes through surprise then confusion then anger, and he stands up and say, “I don’t believe either of you.”

Alternate-Asano starts, “Dad-”

“You come into my house with my children,” Principal says, “claiming the impossible, you insult my kids, you insult my school, you insult my principles. You have no _proof_ , other than, what? You look like each other? And now you're asking me for millions in cash? Are you joking?"

"Why, do you want a DNA test?" Asano says boredly, resting his cheek on his hand.

Principal glares at both Asano and him, but Itona thinks rather oddly that it's no where near as vicious as how Asano glares. He smiles back, undeterred.

"I want the  _ truth _ ," Principal hisses.

Asano looks interested then, for the first time, and he gets out of his seat and bows a little with a hand outstretched. "Let's go, then. I'll speak to you in private."

"The truth can be said out in the open," Principal challenges.

"Not the way I say it," says Asano. "You think I am afraid but let me assure you that you do not want any of your  _ children  _ to bear witness to whatever I'm about to say to you."

Itona kind of knows where this is going.

Five minutes passes in silence, both Asanos have disappeared into the home office and it’s an eerie lack of activity since then. Then alternate-Asano says, "what's happening?"

“What are they speaking about?" Ikeda asks. Then winces, because he could probably guess.

Itona recalls how absolutely mean and scathing Asano could be. He thinks about the state of Kunugigaoka in their time, the way Asano bowed to 3-E to ask them to assassinate his father's ideals, the way he watches his alternate-self with an expression akin to longing and regret. "I think it's best we don't find out," he says. 

Eventually they start chatting lowly about strategies and battle plans, Itona scribbling notes on a piece of paper, when there's the sound of footsteps approaching. It's Asano, and he's grinning so wide with such a menacing aura it's actually terrifying, and he hums a little tune as he heads to the kitchen.

"Um," says alternate-Itona, "h-how did it go?"

Immediately after those words, as if on cue, Principal appears and pulls alternate-Asano into a large hug. His eyes are suspiciously red, Itona wisely chooses not to comment.

"Tea?" Says Asano, sweeping in grandly and offering cups to the table. He gives Itona the most smug look he'd ever seen and sips his tea self-assuredly, and finally Principal sets his cup down on the table and says, "how much do you need?"

"You know," Asano says to him later when they're back in their motel room, because Asano had declined an invitation to spend the nights in with a "this house has too much familial love, it's sickening," which makes the occupants very uncomfortable and fills Itona with something akin to glee. "Yelling at your problems is actually very therapeutic. I know you didn't get to kick Shiro's ass, but you definitely should this time around."

"Was that what happened?" Itona muses aloud. 

"Guess we'll never know," Asano says peacefully.

They're quiet for a while, then Itona says, "I'm going to call you Gakushuu in my head now."

The silence between them then changes into a confused atmosphere, then Gakushuu says, "come again?"

"There are too many Asanos around now," Itona clarifies, "there's you, your alternate self, and your alternate father. All three of you are Asanos in my brain, it's very confusing." 

The silence continues for a while more, then it's broken by Asano's very loud laughter, from genuine amusement and not from the misfortune of others as if Itona actually said something  _ funny _ . Then Asano says, "you can call me Gakushuu in real life too, if you want."

It sounds warm, curling around Itona's belly. "Thanks," he says, feeling a little embarrassed now, even though he rarely does. "You can call me Itona."

" _ Thanks _ ," Asano parrots a little mockingly, but then he says, "go to sleep, Itona."

Itona blinks at the ceiling twice, and smiles privately to himself. "Okay," he says.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my god you guys, I feel kind of bad writing this. I love Ikeda. I want to write another time travel fic so I can write a buddy cop-esque fic with Ikeda and Gakushuu as they good-cop-bad-cop their way into figuring out who sent Gakushuu in the past/Ikeda into the future and avoid Gakuhou (works in both scenarios). 
> 
> Gakushuu is SO MEAN in this.


	13. 2014

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome back my fellow, uh, readers. Nice to see everyone is still here, eh, somewhat. We're back to my best girl Irina!

**2014**

Irina finds out, mostly through the grapevine, that apparently Reaper's apprentice had apparently been killed by Reaper and he had found a new one who was some teenage girl. Which might sound ridiculous and mostly baseless rumors to anyone else, but Irina knows this means three things.

One, the original Reaper, Korosensei, was no more. He was captured by Shiro, and the current Reaper was his then-apprentice, and he had done a good job pretending to be the original Reaper that people just assumed the apprentice must have got offed. Which aligns with their timeline.

Two, that means Reaper was currently in Japan. He had somehow found Shiro, betrayed his master, and he was probably moonlighting as a florist somewhere, ready to sell unsuspecting children a bouquet of roses for their teacher's birthday.

Three, her alternate self was alive, and was currently with Reaper. Reaper must have found alternate-her who had no idea what went down between the two of them, and somehow Reaper must have left her alive and decided to work with her. Irina had no thoughts on that.

Which means they have to be on the lookout for Reaper and herself, but there's nothing else to be done about it. Irina, about to open the door to the motel room, hears laughing that definitely doesn't come from either the Asano or Itona she knows, and she opens the door.

Laid out on one of the beds in a tangle of limbs are four children, namely the alternate versions of Asano and Itona she had already met, alternate-Akari Yukimura, and alternate-Karma Akabane. They're all snuggled up in an oddly domestic scene with three blankets and a book between them.

Akari looks up sharply. "Who is that?"

"That's Miss Irina," alternate-Asano chirps, "hi! How was espionage work?"

"Same old, same old," Irina says. "Where is, well, you?"

"They went out to get lunch," alternate-Asano tells her, "mean-me says the level of affection in this room is suffocating and that he couldn't in our proximity any longer."

"Only you would dare snark to him," Karma mutters.

"Are you saying you're scared of him?" Alternate-Asano teases, then, "he's  _ me.  _ He wouldn't do anything I wouldn't do."

"You remember he tried to chop Ikeda's fingers off with a cleaver, right?" Alternate-Itona says, "he made your dad cry. He went back into Shiro's lab and two people resigned that day."

Yeah, that sounded like Asano. Wait, "he went back to Shiro's lab?" Irina questions.

"Yeah, and good thing too," alternate-Asano says, "apparently Shiro did tons of remodelling." He pulls up hand-drawn blueprints and floor plans and starts talking about the apparent changes to the laboratory, but it’s mostly moot points. “Mean-me didn’t manage to get much about the security system,” he says, “they expanded the place and essentially made it a labyrinth to get through, which  _ sucks _ . He pretended to be an evil businessman again, same guy actually, and got in and out without any fanfare, really.”  

"What else happened?" Irina says, leaning against the doorway.

"They didn't say much," alternate-Asano shrugs. "Apparently mean-me was  _ mean _ ."

Karma winces. "Don't ever be like that."

"Aww," alternate-Asano says, "you love me."

Karma stays silent. Alternate-Itona glowers at him. Akari turns around to look at Irina as if to say, look at these idiots.

"You know, you two are apparently great friends in our timeline," Irina says. She's not sure about the 'great' part but the few anecdotes Asano had recounted, he'd spoken about Karma in a, dare Irina say, fond manner, so friendship is a sure thing no matter how vehemently Asano denies it.

"No," alternate-Karma gasps in horror.

"Oh, Irina, you're back," says a voice behind her. Asano saunters up, hands in his pockets. Beside him, Itona nods in greeting.

"There's no way we're friends," Karma says loudly.

"Is that what you were talking about?" Asano sounds amused. 

Itona snorts a little. "You joined Kunugigaoka High because of Gakushuu." Since when had they switched to first names? The boys must have bonded in her absence.

"Why would I do that?" Karma demands.

"Because you love me," Asano says, without missing a beat. Alternate-Asano snickers. Karma stays silent. Alternate-Itona glowers at him, harder.

"If we are all done fraternizing," Asano says breezily, "what do you have for us, Irina?"

"Reaper is definitely in Japan and he has this version of me with him," Irina says, "my history had been unaffected by other than Reaper somehow getting in contact with me in the past 4 years. I'm thinking that if we run into me, you should put me out of commission as soon as possible."

Asano frowns. "Really."

"I'm not the same as I was before 3-E," Irina reminds him, "who I was at 19, and with Reaper along? I'd shoot you the moment your guard is down. I'd say try not to kill me, but if things come down to it-"

"We're not killing you," Itona says.

"And I appreciate that," Irina says sincerely. 

"Well we get in this mess together, we get out of it together as well," Asano says, "fate of the universe, right? All in?"

Itona blinks, looks down at his hands, then absently touches his hair. "Sure," he finally says, "I wasn't supposed to live this long. Die saving the world?"

Asano laughs. "Neither was I. It'd be a spectacular death, if anything."

"We should write our wills," Irina jokes, "one of us should make it back, at least, and tell our story."

"People already think I'm nuts," Asano says, "hear my will: to the dog I do not have I leave what's left of my familial love, to my father I leave a dollar."

"To my father I leave the painting I did of a giant middle finger," Itona muses, "it's behind the door of my bedroom wall. And maybe like, 3 dollars?"

"To Tadaomi I leave my gun," Irina says, "and sole custody of our baby."

She doesn't want to die but she knows who she is, wants to let them know the option is there if it came down to it, to get them all out safely. Asano looks more contemplative than anything and Itona seems to be seriously considering the options, and when she turns the children on the bed are regarding her with mild apprehension. 

"Well," alternate-Asano speaks up nervously, "...we're supposed to all end up being friends, right? That's why you're here, I don't know how we end up meeting you but it was through 3-E? And we’re not going to… well, nothing will happen, will it? I mean, we’re talking about… real assassins?”

And it hits Irina all at once, the same time as it does to Itona and Asano, that they're all  _ children _ . In another universe Asano would have to carry the burden and suffer for a death that was not his, Itona would have his life stripped away as he's experimented on like a lab rat wishing for something he cannot achieve; in this universe their fates were gentle, and here Akari had yet to lose her family or her career, and Karma had gone to a school that welcomed him with opened arms and gained his. They are  _ children _ , listening to Irina and Itona and Asano casually discuss death and realizing, truly, that  _ lives  _ were at stake.

Back in 3-E, 15 year olds shouldn't have the fate of the world in their hands. Neither should they.

"Wait," Asano says slowly, "were you joking about the baby thing? I honestly couldn't tell."

"I have a nine-month old," Irina says.

"Oh," says Itona.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I was doing more research (Don't I use that word loosely?) and after the time skip in canon, 7 years later it's revealed that Irina and Karasuma had a daughter in kindergarten, so she would have been about 5/6 in 7 years, and I set this in their last year of high school about 3 years after 3-E which means their unnamed daughter should be about a year old, or two. And I decided to include this fact now, not because I just found out or anything, but because there was no reason before to bring it up this previously but now I'll come back to it because of reasons (ahem) because a baby! She's a mom! I have my reasons, okay?!


	14. 2014

**2014**

Itona and Irina steps out to speak in the hallway. Gakushuu can guess what it's about. He sits on the other bed with his legs crossed and the children, uncharacteristically silent, turn to him.

"I'm going to say this once," Gakushuu says. "this isn't your fight. I understand that in our universe, Koro-sensei was taken down by 3-E and maybe you feel some sort of obligation to do it here to but that shouldn't have been their battle to fight in, as this shouldn't be yours. Whatever Irina, Itona and I were saying isn't hyperbole. 3-E faced professionals in the industry, they got kidnapped and poisoned and drowned and stabbed," his gaze flickers briefly to Akari. "This is going to be like that. You guys don't have to fight to save the world. I apologize that the repercussions of this didn't cross my mind when I considered all of you, as children, and even 3-E had a whole year to work up to their first kill, but we're talking about the possible deaths of many people and one of our own."

He sits back and watches the children think it over. Age 14 he was still desperately trying to live up to his father's expectations, he doesn't know what he'll do handed a plate like this. "You don't have to come to a decision today;" he says. 

Irina offers to take everyone to dinner, and they all clamber into a booth at a cafe a little ways down the street. 

That evening, Akari and Karma part ways and Gakushuu and Itona walk the other two home. The Itona-s walk ahead and his little doppelganger falls in step beside him.

"I admit I wasn't weighing the severity of the situation enough," alternate-Gakushuu admits, rubbing his arm, "it just seemed, fun, like an adventure we'd all get to go on and then emerge unscathed but victorious at the end of it, like protagonists in an action book. I never did consider that, well, any one of us would…" He kicks a pebble on the street. "I suppose I overestimate myself far too much. I thought if you guys made it, we would too, but the circumstances are different and I shouldn't judge the situation by mere comparison when our paths are divergent."

Gakushuu feels a smile quirk up on his lips. "We're not  _ that  _ different."

"I know," says alternate-Gakushuu, "no one else sees that. I call you mean-me and everyone sees the mean part, but you're also, well, me."

Gakushuu snorts and ruffles his hair. Ahead, Itona does the same to his younger counterpart. 

"I do want to ask," alternate-Gakushuu says, "how's you and Dad? In your universe, I mean. You don't have to tell me if you don't want to, but you talked about Kunugigaoka's system and I honestly can't imagine it."

Gakushuu doesn't know what to say, he doesn't want to ruin the perception of their father in his eyes. He says, "it's weird when you two speak."

"What do you mean?" 

"We trash talk each other constantly," Gakushuu says. He sighs heavily, "it's exhausting. He tells me I'm useless, I tell him to lick my shoe. He says I'll be his little corporate pet on a leash, I tell him he'll be my personal footstool." When he looks at alternate-him, he's listening with a strange level of acceptance on his face devoid of judgement. Gakushuu continues, "we're… he's insistent on a very impersonal relationship between us. He calls me Asano in the house, I call him principal. It's been… better, I would say, since Koro-sensei, but sometimes I wonder if he loved his dead student more than he loves me."

Alternate-Gakushuu is biting his lip now, no doubt feeling unprecedented guilt at the father-son relationship he had that was nowhere near his fault. It's... strange, a bit, but Gakushuu's honestly happy for himself. There's no point in dwelling in something he can't change in his own time, and it's nice to see what could have been. So Gakushuu says, "so which one is it?"

"Ah, huh?"

"Which one are you interested in?" Gakushuu clarifies, feeling a strange sense of exhilaration watching the blush rush over his alternate self's cheeks. "You are friends with Ren Sakakibara here, yes? Is it him? Or one of the other two because you looked pretty cosy back there. Itochan, was it? Do you have a cutesy nickname for Karma too? Or Akari, we did hit off in the end after graduation, so-"

"It's none of them!" Alternate-Gakushuu protests, "God, you're just like Dad!"

"Finally found the one thing we can bond over," Gakushuu jokes. 

When he's walking back with Itona, he asks, "did you know Irina had a child?"

Itona shakes his head. "She didn't bring it up, but she's with Karasuma now, had been since 3-E. Apparently they, ah, well."

Gakushuu hums. "Can you promise me something?" He doesn't know why he's doing this, but seeing this alternate future is making him think of hope and opportunities and family and time he'll never get back, and his mother. This child, whoever they may be, should never need to taste loss the way he had, without a choice. "If it ever comes down to me or her, one of us makes it out alive, you have to pick her."

Itona sucks in a breath. "You can't be serious."

Gakushuu sighs, "yes, I am. Her child shouldn't be forced to grow up without without their mother just because-"

"You can't seriously think this whole thing is your fault," Itona says. "Like you intended for all of this to happen when you came in to annoy both of us. That's stupid. You're stupid. Don't give yourself that much credit."

"I don't," Gakushuu says, frustrated, "I know this whole series of events weren't down to any one of us. But surely even you understand what I meant. She has a  _ baby _ , Itona, a child that will never get their mother back."

"Think about your father," Itona insists, "he loves you. He would be devastated."

"I know," Gakushuu says, "I'm not asking you to shoot either me or her if the three of us make it. I'm saying that if,  _ if  _ it ever came down to saving one of us, I want her to be the one who gets to go home."

Itona is silent. They walk shoulder by shoulder until the motel comes in sight, then Itona finally says, "I expect you to do the same for me, then." 

Gakushuu lets out a little huff of a laugh. "Promise?"

Itona gives him a look that says, what are you, 5? But he acquiesces, "I promise," and the rest of the walk back is in comfortable silence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another chapter where nothing really happens. Sad. Just some hopefully enlightening conversations. "Gwen, why do you put angst in a stupid crackfic like this? I don't want feels, I just want confusion and comedy." Well.
> 
> I always write Gakushuu as such a Nice Boi. You know, aside from 2 chapters ago where I wrote him as fucking mean. I just really like him, okay, he's a sweetheart. If you know me by know you're probably thinking "Itona having to choose between saving Irina and Gakushuu's life is probably some sort of foreshadowing, isn't it," well, who knows?


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! I'm back!

 

The children come to a decision, that they'll fight for it. "No world to rule over if it blows up," says alternate-Asano.

"I'm doing this for my sister," says Akari, "always knew that guy was bad news."

"No way I'm being left out," Karma insists, "and what government do I manipulate if everyone dies?"

"And I have a personal score to settle," says alternate-Itona, and the plan is set. Principal refuses to excluded of the possible world-ending fray, which Gakushuu agrees to with the sharpest of grins and Itona doesn't know how he feels about it. 

The children have various levels of martial arts mastery, and Karma is proficient with a knife. Principal is an oddly good shot, as with Gakushuu, who terrifies the rest with his sharpshooting but later confides to Itona that he'd spent time at the shooting range just so his Karma would stop harping about being better with a gun. Irina says, "if any of you run into me, disarm me and run. I was a pretty shitty at hand-to-hand combat when I was 19, so any of you should be able to take me down, and I would admit I have a soft spot for children while I won't hesitate to shoot, it won't be lethal. But I suck at cardio, so if you can run, you should."

"What if we run into Reaper?" Akari asks.

"Don't try to take him on. Stay hidden," Irina says, "and pray for the best."

Itona's not sure what he's going to do. Irina is sounding pretty cheerful but he now knows it's all a farce, she's anxious and she has a husband and a baby waiting for her. Gakushuu has a father, too, abielt one who loves him in all the twisted ways. Who does Itona have? 

He's hoping everyone makes it out alive. 

"The children," Irina says, pulling him aside. Gakushuu and Principal are in stilted, awkward conversation, and they pause to join in their circle, the kids playing loudly in another room. "We're not going to put them in harm's way."

"I'm thinking that little Itona and I can camp out in the surveillance rooms to keep an eye on things," Gakushuu says, "Yukimura and Karma will distract Shiro, surely he wouldn’t hurt his fiance’s sister, and even then between the both of them, they’ll be able to take him down easy. Nowhere where they can get in the crossfire."

"The four of us would have to split up to cover more ground," Irina says, "because there are three laboratory wings and we can't pinpoint where Koro-sensei might be held."

"Okay," says Itona, "let's do this." He’s bursting with nerves but there’s no point waiting any longer, they’re just delaying the inevitable and the more days go by, the more horrible Shiro’s research progresses.

On a school day the Principal takes leave and calls in sick for his son and alternate-Itona, what their relationship is Itona still isn’t quite sure but he’s aware that the Principal is his guardian, of some sort. Karma had waved it away and said he skipped school often enough that his lack of presence won’t be questioned, and alternate-Asano had smacked him. They’ve gotten earpieces and daggers for everyone as a precaution but only four handguns to go around.

Akari skips up to the reception counter in the main lobby with Karma on her heels, and stands on her tip-toes to peer over the receptionist's laptop. "Is Dr Yanagisawa in?"

"Hello, Miss Yukimura," says the receptionist, "he is. Who do you have with you?"

"This is my friend," Akari says, "we're going out for lunch in a while, but I had something to pass to Dr Yanagisawa so I decided to drop by." Her voice carries over nicely over the comms. 

"He's still going to have to sign in," the receptionist says apologetically. Karma scribbles something over the counter and the two skip off merrily with directions to one of the offices to await Shiro's arrival, as the receptionist makes a call. Simultaneously in another corner of the building, Gakushuu and Itona finish tying the ropes over the unconscious security guards in the surveillance rooms.  

"You kids stay out of trouble," Gakushuu warns. 

"We'll alert you if anything shows up on the cameras," alternate-Asano says. He and alternate-Itona settle in the chairs, and Gakushuu and Itona circle around and reach the front lobby in time to watch Irina deftly tie off the ends of a gag on the poor receptionist. The principal types at the computer.

"No records of where any human experimentation laboratories might be," He reports. "Looks like we'll have to search the labs after all. Did anything show up on the cameras?"

"Illegal activities run on a different security feed," Gakushuu says, "the surveillance room monitors only the working areas and the dormitories. The labs are only monitored via Shiro’s personal office, which makes sense with all the sketchy things going on here."

"Keep each other updated," Irina nods. She raids a supply closet and everyone dons cleaning uniforms, and Itona grabs a broom for appearances. "Gakushuu and Itona, right wing. Gakuhou, middle. I'll go left."

They split up. The right laboratory wing seems to be bustling with activity, scientists running around and paying them no mind. Someone absently hands Gakushuu a coffee cup, which he makes a face at but throws in a trash bag he's lugging around. The right wing seems to host experiments related to microorganisms, petri dishes and humming machines everywhere but no sign of live test subjects.

The fire alarm rings. Itona winces and adjusts his earpieces to calibrate them, and around them scientists explode into a flurry and head to the door. Their comms crackle to life. "Irina, come in," says the voice of his alternate self, "Irina, are you okay?"

"What's going on?" Next to him, Gakushuu pulls Itona aside to avoid a large crowd sweeping past them and heading towards the exit.

"We can't see what's going on in the labs but people are evacuating the left wing, where she went," says alternate-Itona, "something must have happened. Irina, come in."

“The fire alarm’s been pulled,” Gakushuu answers. “Is there a fire?”

“Not that we can see,” says alternate-Asano. “Maybe in the labs?”

“No, wait,” alternate-Itona says. There’s the sound of keys clacking on the keyboards, then a pause, then an “oh shit. Someone left the left-wing with a bleeding arm. They’re talking about something, I can’t read lips.”

“I can,” alternate-Asano says. There’s another pause, then, “there’s a fight going on. They’re talking about... people with guns. Must be Irina.”

Gakushuu turns to Itona. "Go find her, make sure she's okay. I'll search the rest of this wing just to be sure nothing's here."

"Right," Itona says, "I'll-"

"Not so fast, something’s happening on your side," alternate-Asano's voice comes on, "Someone cut the feeds to the entrance of the right wing. Last I saw there was still an evacuation ongoing. Itona and mean-me, is something happening at your end?"

Itona looks around. Almost everyone has made it out of the lab, leaving behind experimental setups and open laptops their wake. "Nothing." 

“Itona, go,” Gakushuu says, “find Irina.”

Itona stares. “And leave you now? You heard what they said-”

“This is an empty hallway,” Gakushuu says, trying to sound exasperated but the waver in his words betrays his worry. “I’ll be fine."

"Yeah, no chance," Itona hisses. 

"Itona," Gakushuu says, "We definitely know Irina is in trouble, and-" He stops short and freezes, and Itona looks up. Standing at the other end of the hallway, smiling serenely with his hands behind his back, is Reaper. He has light eyes that glow in the shadows.

"Gakushuu, that's Reaper." Itona whispers. He grips the broom tighter. 

Gakushuu grins thinly. "Figured." Reaper isn't doing anything, just leaning against the wall and watching them with a mildly interested expression. "Itona,  _ go _ ."

"I'm not-"

“Go find Irina, Itona,” Gakushuu says.

“I’m not leaving you,” Itona says.

"You promised," Gakushuu hisses, "you promised, if it's either one of us, you'll save her. You  _ promised _ , Itona."

"You said the same thing," Itona protests hotly, and Reaper cocks his head, amused.

Itona  doesn't want to leave Gakushuu here alone, in his earpiece alternate-Itona is begging for a sign that they're safe and alternate-Asano is yelling for Irina to come in and say something, and Gakushuu stares Reaper down. 

"I'll be fine, okay?" Gakushuu says, smiling a little, "I promise. You keep yours and I'll keep mine."

Objectively, Itona knows that Gakushuu has a better chance against Reaper. Without his tentacles he and Gakushuu's physical abilities are pretty much equivalent, not that it would matter against someone on a completely different league, but Reaper loves to monologue and Gakushuu has a penchant for keeping up with long speeches and goading people into talking more. But-

Itona grabs Gakushuu’s hand. “We can make a break for it.”

Which will probably get them both shot down before they leave their lab wing. 

“Nah,” Gakushuu says. He squeezes Itona’s hand, then drops it. “We both know that’s not going to work.”

Reaper pushes himself off the wall and stretches. 

"I trust you," Gakushuu says. He takes two steps forward, Itona takes two steps back, then he prays desperately for all of them to make it out alive. With his blood pounding in his ears, he turns around and breaks into a sprint.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ;)
> 
> Sorry to leave everyone at this part of the fic but so as it seems, here it is. Who knows what will happen?


	16. 2014

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again!

**2014**

Irina, halfway down the corridor of the labs, feels a shift in the air. She ducks just as a bullet whizzes past her.

Someone screams. She drops her cleaning supplies and rolls into a crouch, and pulls out her pistol. Then a shrill ringing sound pierces the air, someone must have pulled a fire alarm for immediate evacuation, which means their cover was blown. 

"He was telling the truth," says a voice unnaturally similar to hers, and Irina faces her doppelganger. "Someone who looks exactly like me."

"Hi," says Irina, "Irina Jelavic."

Alternate-Irina cocks her head. "Nice to meet you. Do I have a long lost elder sister or something that I never met?"

"Not that I recall," Irina says. There was no sign of Reaper here, which means he must he in one of the other wings. She desperately hopes that whoever was facing him, would have escaped. 

"Who are you?" Alternate-Irina asks, cocking her gun.

Irina smiles at her. She should have a relatively easier chance taking her down, after years of additional training. She grabs her own pistol and fires several warning shots, then lunges.

Alternate-Irina goes down hard. She flails and screams and Irina gets a high heeled kick in her gut. Irina wrenches the gun away from her younger self and tosses it aside, but alternate-Irina pulls a knife from her belt and thrusts.

Irina ducks and rolls over, which gives her alternate-self time to regain her balance and lashes out, barely nicking Irina with the blade, and the duo start to grapple. 

Irina loses her earpiece in the struggle. She doesn’t want to kill herself or anything, but alternate-Irina seems intent on at least gravely injuring her. There was something about bringing a knife to a gun fight, but there was something else about bringing a knife to a fist-fight, and Irina missteps and the knife gets embedded in her side. 

The duo break apart, Irina staggering backwards. Alternate-Irina scrabbles for her weapon at one corner and aims just as Irina manages to get hers, and they stare at each other with their guns raised in a stalemate.

"Who are you?" Alternate-Irina demands.

"Why did you join Reaper?" Irina says. The wound in her side was still numb, but in a minute or two it was going to start hurting like a bitch and incapacitate her. 

"How do you know about Yanagisawa and his research?" Alternate-Irina says, "what do you want?" 

"What do  _ you  _ want?" Irina counters. "Reaper has nothing to offer you. Where's Lovro?"

Alternate-Irina winces.

"Did Reaper kill Lovro?" Irina says. "Is that why you joined him?"

"It's none of your business," alternate-Irina hisses. "why do you look so much like me? How old are you, where are you from?"

The sting was growing more painful now. Irina feels her arm shaking but she can't lower her gun. "I'm from the future," she tries, "I'm you. I'm a time traveller."

"You expect me to buy that bullshit?" Alternate-Irina scoffs. 

"I know everything about you," Irina says, "your favourite colour is blue, you're a Christian. You hate peonies." Her legs tremble in pain. "That mission in 2005, you played the violin-"

Alternate-Irina sneers at her. "Come up with something more believable, won't you-"

"Irina!" That's Itona's voice! Footsteps sound to her right and Itona comes into view, panting lightly. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah," Irina says, but she's not looking at him. Alternate-Irina is, staring at Itona with wide eyes, and her gaze unsteadies. Oh god, that was it!

"He's with me," Irina says, "you remember him, don't you? 12 years ago in Serbia, after your parents died. He stayed with you until you met Olga."

Alternate-Irina wavers, just a bit. "I don't," she says hysterically, "h-how? Why?"

Itona exchanges a shocked look with Irina but he quickly catches on. "She's right," he says, "I didn't really understand you, but I was there."

The gun is swung wide-arc to Itona now, who doesn't flinch. "If you guys are telling the truth," alternate-Irina says, "if you were from the future, why would you go there to find me?"

"I'm sorry," Itona says, worry and regret lacing his tone, "We didn’t mean to time travel, we’ve been trying to get home since. We've been transported to different places every 4 years, in 1998 and 2002 where we met you, 2006 in Canada, 2010 where Irina met Reaper, and now. In my universe, I was taken by Shiro-ah, Yanagisawa and he experimented on me, turned me into a monster, I knew what it was like to lose everything. When I saw you, you just reminded me of myself, when I needed someone the most but no one was there for me. I couldn't rescue you or take you out of your life, but when I saw you crying on the street just there, I didn't want you to be alone."

With that, her resolve crumbles. Alternate-Irina lets her hand fall to her side limply.  "Reaper was going on and on about time travel," she says, "yeah, he knows. Something about 1998 and 2010. And seeing you in 2002? I guess weirder fucking things have happened."

"I'm sorry," Irina says.

"Gakushuu's with Reaper," Itona says hurriedly, "he told me to come rescue you."

"Is he insane?" Irina says, and only then does pain surge to her side and she falls to her knees, dropping her pistol and clutching her wound.

"Reaper will kill him," says alternate-Irina. 

Itona's gaze goes off into the distance, and Irina realizes he's listening to the comms. He snaps back to attention and says, "Asano senior found Koro-sensei. He's in the middle wing."

"Good," Irina says. She looks down at her hands, now stained red. "I can't move. Go get Koro-sensei, I'll meet you outside."

Itona looks at her worriedly. "Are you sure?"

"We need him now," Irina says, "I don't know if Gakuhou would be able to get Koro-sensei on our side. What's the point of this entire heist if we don't get the one thing we came here for?"

Itona looks conflicted. "I-"

"That Koro-sensei you speak of," alternate-Irina interjects, "that's Reaper's original master, right? If anyone has a chance of saving your friend, if he's still alive, it'd be him."

Itona nods, then runs out. Alternate-Irina pulls Irina to her feet and slings an arm around her shoulder. "His name is Itona?" She asks.

"Itona Horibe," Irina says, and hisses as more pain shoots up her ribs.

"I'm not sorry for stabbing you," alternate-Irina says. 

Irina grins at her, pained. "Yeah, I know. Thanks for not killing me though." 

"That'd be killing myself," alternate-Irina mutters.

"What are you and Reaper doing here anyways," Irina asks, "I have to apologize, though. Reaper seeked you out only because of me."

"You're going to have to explain all this time travel shit later to me," alternate-Irina says. "He and Yanagisawa agreed to bring the original Reaper down, but Yanagisawa said that someone was after his work. Reaper agreed to offer protection on the condition that Yanagisawa made him powerful with his research after he had mastered it."

"That may have been our fault, too," Irina admits. "On a related note, do you want to consider a career change?"

She's pretty sure alternate-Irina jostles her extra hard just for that. "You're not an assassin anymore?" She asks accusingly.

"I work for the Japanese government, now," Irina says. "It's a long story."

"At the pace you're walking it'd take us forever to get outside," alternate-Irina says.

"So it will," Irina says.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're wondering about Alternate-Irina's sudden change of heart, well I think she has a tendency to switch loyalities pretty easily even if she has emotional attachment to any of the sides (like with Reaper and 3-E). It's just the way she is in her line of work, I would think. And Reaper has a whole monologue prepared about time travel which he no doubt as recited to Irina (yeah, you'll read the monologue later) which is why she's more inclined to believe them, I would think. Hopefully it's not too much of a stretch.


	17. 2014

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really have nothing to do with my life, huh

**2014**

“Hello,” Gakushuu says, “Reaper, right?”

Reaper grins at him, all teeth. Gakushuu tightens his grip on his trash-bag. 

“Mr Tanaka,” Reaper says, languidly stretching. “Or should I say Asano?”

Gakushuu doesn’t move. He wills himself to match Reaper’s stare, cool and calculating. 

“I have to admit, you had me running around in circles there, you and your friend,” says Reaper. “So many clues, so many things to string together and you just had me  _ stumped _ . You, Tanaka, don’t exist, and the million dollars was traced back to Gakuhou Asano’s account, but,” Reaper cocks his head, “what an enigma, really, that man has no relatives to speak of and his only son is just 14! Surely you don’t fit the bill, despite the uncanny resemblance. And that friend of yours, pretty blonde lady with the blue eyes, why we met 4 years ago when she was in her early 20s, so imagine my surprise to find out that Irina Jelavic had been only 16!”

“That is a surprise,” Gakushuu agrees, “what do you know about my other friend?”

“Itona Horibe?” Reaper pretends to think. “He should be 14 too, should he not be, attending middle school with Asano’s only son. I could have sworn he looked much older than that standing next to you just.”

“Interesting,” Gakushuu says, “how funny time works, doesn’t it?”

“How funny indeed,” says Reaper. He takes several slow steps forward, watching Gakushuu with sharp eyes. “You know what else is funny? I could have sworn I saw you in England 16 years ago.”

Gakushuu’s blood runs cold. Shit. “How do you figure? 16 years, that is a long time. Surely your mind isn’t playing tricks on you.”

“My mind, maybe, but photographs don’t lie,” Reaper hums. “Doing reconnaissance before an assassin in broad daylight is pretty important, you know. Blonde hair is pretty common and I couldn’t quite see your eyes in that photograph, but how  _ funny  _ it was that you were wearing a jacket from Kunugigaoka High School when it didn’t exist yet!”

He takes a step forward, Gakushuu takes one back. Reaper tracks the movement and smiles a little wider. 

“I didn’t quite put the pieces together when I saw Miss Irina years ago but you were just unmistakable. Luckily I had all the photographs and records saved. And coming back twice? How bold.”

“Looks like they don’t call you the best assassin for nothing,” Gakushuu says. “Why don’t you tell me what you have figured out?”

“Stalling,” Reaper sighs, “but I’m afraid I was hoping you’ll help me with that, actually, so I’ll see you through your ruse. I doubt your friend will make it in time to rescue your version of Miss Irina anyways, so do enlighten me: why are you here? And we  _ are _ looking at time travel here, aren’t we, so how do you do it?”

“We came in here 4 years ago to rescue Itona,” Gakushuu says, “but you already know that.”

“There’s no one else to rescue this time,” Reaper says, “unless, you can’t mean-”

“Reaper version original?” Gakushuu raises an eyebrow. “Smart.”

Reaper narrows his eyes. “What do you want with him?”  

“What do  _ you  _ want with him?” Gakushuu says. “Imagine throwing away years and years of your relationship, him guiding and teaching you to be the best version of yourself, for genetically engineered version of power that’s not even your own?”

Reaper stills. Gakushuu takes another step back.

“You might want to choose your next words carefully,” Reaper says, voice chilling.

Gakushuu knows that. This was the man who didn’t hesitate to drown 15 year olds to assassinate a target for fun, he surely wouldn’t have any qualms against killing him. Gakushuu knows the only reason he’s standing now is because of Reaper’s curiosity on their apparent time-travel, but Gakushuu can’t let slip about any of that, not to him. The device, as unpredictable as it may be, would cause unparalleled amounts of damage in the wrong hands. 

“I know a thing or two about that,” Gakushuu says, “I spent a really long time chasing expectations I could never meet. I wanted my father to be proud of me but he always said I could be better.”

“I don’t care about that,” Reaper says. 

“It’s okay if you don’t,” Gakushuu says, “I know that now. And the one thing I do know is that he did love me, whether or not he said it, whether or not he hurt me, because sometimes the choices people make might have good intentions, but-”

“Oh will you shut up,” Reaper snaps. “I already got the sob story spiel from Irina Uno but I. Don’t. Give. A  _ fuck _ . It was funny when you wouldn’t stop talking and Shiro spun in circles but now it’s just plain annoying.”

Gakushuu takes another step back. “Sorry about that,” he says, “can I convince you not to kill me?”

“Maybe if you teach me a little about your time travel thing,” Reaper says.

Gakushuu winces. “Yeah, I can’t do that.” He’s racking his brain but there’s no logical explanation that doesn’t include time travel. He was going to die, wasn’t he?

“Time travel doesn’t exist,” Gakushuu says, “sorry to be the bearer of bad news but there’s no undoing things in the past. If I could, I would, trust me. Besides, you’re doing pretty well yourself, now, why would you want to change anything?”

“There are a lot of things a small fry like you wouldn’t understand.” Reaper sighs, “it’s not simply about  _ changing the past _ . You are right, for one, that there’s nothing much I would change about the way I did things, it brought me to the top, after all. But,” Reaper stares at Gakushuu consideringly, “you look like an ambitious young man. Surely you understand the possibilities that time manipulation would bring you?”

Gakushuu winces a little. “You understand the cost and profit theory, right? It’s just not worth the effort for it, there are too many variables-”

“Okay, now you’re boring,” Reaper sighs. He takes another step forward and Gakushuu mirrors his action anxiously.

“What are the original circumstances in which I met Irina?” Reaper asks, “She knows far too much about me, I’m assuming we worked together in your time?” He twirls his pistol. Gakushuu’s eyes flicker down to it, then back up at Reaper’s face, who still has a smile on but it’s now visibly slightly forced.

“Not too clear on the details about that one,” Gakushuu says. Takes two steps back as Reaper advances two forward.

“Why do you want to save my old master?” Reaper asks. 

“Can’t tell you that either,” Gakushuu gets out. Then he yelps and ducks when the glass window of the empty laboratory beside him shatters. Instantly Reaper is on him, snarling, “can’t even take a bit of a scare, and you thought you could take me on?”

“Worth a shot,” Gakushuu grunts. He kicks Reaper solidly in the gut and vaults over the broken window, cutting his palms on the glass. And then ducks behind a giant metal cabinet just as gunshots sound out. He’s so glad he spent all that time learning how to shoot a gun at the range, and then playing paintball with Karma. That acclimatized him to the sound of gunshots in quick succession.

“Tell me whatever I need to know,” Reaper yells, “and I’ll make your miserable death less painful!”

“I’ll take my chances!” Gakushuu shouts back. He ducks again as another flurry of gunshots sound out, and when he hears the sound of a gun reloading he bolts.

“Fuck you!” Reaper shouts again, and Gakushuu ducks into another laboratory. He crawls behind a shelf just as he hears the door swing open and slam against the wall, and Reaper’s angry footsteps sounding on the tiles. His heart is beating hard and his hands sting against the metal as he unholsters the gun from his belt. Gakushuu stares at Reaper’s reflection off the mirrored surface of a metal table, gauges the angle and the distance, then prays for the best and pulls the trigger.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can you believe I'm already thinking of a goddamn sequel for this trash. I need more of the wonder trio and this is the only way I can get it


	18. 2014

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not sure who my otps are in this fandom right now. Karma/Nagisa is a fan favorite stan of mine (I just don't write for them because there's plenty of content to fuel my needs.) Karma/Kayano is a Hot Take and I also love them. Gakushuu/Karma is, evidently, the ship that I will go down with and this entire fic is making me root for Gakushuu/Itona AND yesterday while I was happily existing Gakushuu/Kayano slapped me across the face and that's all I can think of now.

**2014**

"What's the situation?" Itona barks into the comms, panting as his steps echo loudly in the now deserted hallways.

"We're calling the police in," says alternate-Asano. "We heard your conversation with the, uh, Irinas. You might want to get to Koro-sensei quick, mean-me doesn’t sound like he’s doing too good."

Itona curses under his breath.

"Gakuhou says Koro-sensei isn't cooperating," alternate-Itona's disembodied voice says worriedly. "He thinks that he's part of Shiro's group. Any chance to call in Aguri?"

None, Itona thinks, but they have the next best thing. "How's Shiro doing? Can Akabane watch over him for a bit? We may not have Aguri but we do have another Yukimura with us."

Alternate-Asano latches onto the idea. "I'll let her know," he says. "They're in Shiro's office now, he knows something is wrong and they're trying to distract and delay him, short of actually stabbing the guy."

"Bitch," Itona hisses. With alternate-Itona's directions in his ear he twists the corners until he comes across a trio yelling, Karma blocking the hallway and Akari fake-crying as Shiro tries to jostle past them.

"Hey!" Itona yells. Shiro looks up and his eyes widen almost comically, and Itona would make a quip about Gakushuu being right and that yelling at your problems truly was therapeutic, but the sound of flesh hitting bone ss he socks Shiro in the jaw and knocks him out cold is far less satisfying that he expected.

"I'll keep an eye on him," Karma says, having confirmed the situation with the boys in the security room. "You two better hurry."

"We don't have visual in the labs so you're on your own from there," Alternate-Asano tells him.

"Copy," says Itona. Akari follows behind him and both of them run deep into the recesses of the laboratory. 

When they turn a corner, they hear two agitated voices talking over each other. "Why don't you let me out if you're not on Shiro's side," Koro-sensei is baiting, seated cross-legged on a metal table on the other side of a glass panel.

"Because you'll attack me the moment I do," the principal says, and Koro-sensei shrugs like "can you blame me?"

"Seriously?" Says Itona, stepping into the room. There was no time for these petty arguments!

Koro-sensei looks over him and Akari, and his gaze darkens. "You claim you are an educator and you bring children with you aboard this cruel endeavour?"

Akari steps around the principal. "Don't you recognize me?"

Koro-sensei gazes at her boredly. "Should I?" 

Akari scowls at him. "And a lot of people say I look like my elder sister."

Koro-sensei's eyes sharpen as he regards Akari in a slightly different light, and Itona watches as realization dawns and he visibly brightens. "Aguri?"

"Name's Akari," she says, "Aguri is my sister."

"I see the resemblance," Koro-sensei says. He hops off the bench and presses his hands to the glass, peering out. "What are you doing here? Where's Aguri?"

"We're here to get you out," Akari says, "because Yanagisawa is an asshole and Aguri's life is at stake. She's fine, she's at her day job now."

"Yeah, working as a teacher in  _ my  _ school," the principal says, crossing his arms.

"Really great banter here, bonding and all that," Itona says impatiently, "but Gakushuu is going to die if we don't get moving soon. He's facing Reaper alone," Itona says. "Well, the new Reaper."

"Oh, that little bitchy apprentice of mine?" Koro-sensei rests his cheek on his hand and pouts a little just for show. "your friend is already dead, sorry."

The principal turns on him, hellfire in his eyes. "That's my son!"

"Ex-son," Koro-sensei corrects. 

"Please," Itona says. He’s a little embarrassed when his voice cracks a little on the one syllable. “You have to help him. We need you.”

Koro-sensei sighs, slowly settling down on the floor. “Look kid, how long has it been since you left your friend with that little traitor? Five minutes, ten? Even if I wanted to help, he’s already dead, gone.”

Akari pounds on the glass. “Asshole! That’s one of my sister’s students, that’s my friend! What do you think she would do if you let an innocent kid die, when you could’ve saved him?!”

Itona opens his mouth to yell, when the voice of his younger self crackles in his ear. “Can you hurry up a little? Asano’s screaming and it sounds pretty bad.”

“He’s still alive!” Itona yells, “he’s screaming! Reaper’s doing something to him, I know you never liked Gakushuu but please, sensei!”

Koro-sensei gives him an incredulous look. “Who are you calling sensei?”

Itona takes in a deep breath. This was hopeless, if Akari couldn’t convince him, no one could. This Koro-sensei was an assassin, he had yet to become the teacher who cared for his students and who would die for them. This Koro-sensei wasn’t Koro-sensei at all, he hadn’t lost Aguri which fuelled him to want to live and teach, he was still Reaper.

“If anything,” Akari is saying, “take this as a chance to beat the one who betrayed you up? He sold you out and got you captured, don’t you feel anger? The need for revenge?”

“I’ve put that past behind me,” Koro-sensei says nonchalantly, but his voice sounds distant. 

“I-itona?” Alternate-Asano says in his earpiece. “I think…”

“Koro-sensei’s not coming,” Itona grits his teeth, “you think what?”

“It’s gone all quiet on his end,” alternate-Asano’s voice is soft. “I’m really praying he just lost his earpiece. Uh.” 

No, no, no, no, no!

“I shouldn’t have fucking left him,” Itona spits out, startling the occupants in the room. He turns and runs out, legs pounding hard on the floor as he runs. Alternate-Asano is screaming in his ear and telling him not to do anything rash, alternate-him is crying, and Itona doesn’t really hear much of anything else.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah, a short chapter where nothing happens. Things sure are getting messy and exciting, aren't they?


	19. 2014

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bitch-sensei!

**2014**

“Irina!” 

It’s strange to hear Karma’s voice address her anything other than Bitch-sensei, which is the only reason she startles when she hears him down the hallway. Karma appears, lugging Shiro’s unconscious form behind him like a corpse, and he stops short at the sight.

Next to her, alternate-Irina purses her lips. ”Another one of your ‘friends’?”

Karma eyes alternate-her with disdain, which Irina thinks is not unlike the Karma she knows. Then he ignores her and says, “are you alright?”

“Not exactly,” Irina says, “mostly in one piece.” Karma winces when he notices the knife sticking out of her, but it’s mostly what’s keeping the blood in. 

“She got stabbed,” Karma says aloud, but he’s speaking into his earpiece. “Yeah, no, there are two of them. Yeah- wait, what? Oh no.”

Irina snaps to attention. “What is it?" She demands.

“Uhm,” Karma says, eyes wide in horror, “they think that, uhm, your Asano…”

Irina gasps. “Oh no.”

“Koro-sensei’s not helping,” Karma says, sounding panicked, “they can’t get him to agree to face Reaper. My Asano and Itona have called the police but they won’t get here in time.”

“The cops?” Alternate-Irina says, “what? Why? I’m a fucking assassin!”

“This isn’t about you, lady!” Karma snaps at her.

“Do they need backup?” Irina asks desperately.

“You’re in no shape for backup,” Karma hisses at her. “I’m going after them.”

“No you’re not! Get back here!” But Karma has already dropped Shiro and sprinted in the direction of the labs. Irina turns to give chase but her leg immediately buckles under her, and alternate-Irina catches her before she hits the ground.

“Yeah, no, he’s right,” alternate-Irina says. “You're in no shape for this. I’ll take you outside. Yanagisawa’s not going anywhere for a while. On the bright side, kid’s probably not dead yet, Reaper likes to play.”

“How’s that any better?” Irina says.

“It’s… really not,” alternate-Irina winces. “But he’s been going off his head about time-travel theories, which I thought was absolute bull, really, but that’s kind of why you convinced me so easily. If anything, Reaper’s going to try to get information out of the kid first.”

“Is there anything we can do?” Irina says.

Alternate-Irina furrows her brow. “I don’t… well…” She frowns, thinks for a moment. “I really disapprove of his methods. He’s unnecessarily cruel during interrogations, and… You kind of look like me, I guess.”

Reaper picks up on the fifth ring. “What? I’m busy,” he snaps over the phone. His voice is a little distorted over the speaker.

Alternate-Irina lets out a choked groan over the line. “T-they… t-”

“What? Don’t tell me a bunch of kids got to you.” Reaper sounds mostly irritated.

“S-sorry,” alternate-Irina gasps, “h-he’s. He’s coming for you, for the k-kid-”

“Brat’s not even dead,” Reaper sneers, and Irina’s heart skips a beat. “Little shit kind of got stamina, I would have to say. You want to hear him?” There’s a rustle, then a very low hoarse scream, then a laugh in the background. Then Reaper’s voice says, “ _ you’re _ not dead, are you?”

“I got stabbed,” alternate-Irina says, “h-he left me to b-bleed to death.”

“Sucks to be you,” Reaper says. There’s another noise in the background, and Reaper says “oh shut your whining," and then back to the phone, “oh fine, kid seems to think I’ll be a ‘monster’,” Irina can hear the sarcastic air quotes, “if i leave you to die alone. Let me show you what a great partner I can be, and how _wonderful_ it would be to cooperate with me, you hear little brat?”

The call cuts. “Well,” alternate-Irina says dryly, “how funny. Apparently Reaper does have a soft spot for kids sometimes.” They quickly switch clothes, and alternate-Irina messily chops off Irina’s length of hair to match hers. She drags Shiro elsewhere and hides herself. 

Reaper appears, hauling Asano by the collar and leaving a trail of blood behind him. He drops Asano’s body to the ground like a limp rag, and kneels down at Irina with a displeased look on his face. 

“Who?” He asks.

Irina imitates the fake pained stutter of her alternate counterpart. “W-white hair, g-gold eyes-”

“Yeah, I know that one,” Reaper sighs. He gets to his feet, “which way did he go?”

“L-labs,” Irina says.

“Didn’t run into him on the way here,” Reaper says, but he doesn’t sound suspicious, more amused, and he turns his back on Irina to stare out into the hallway. “Did he forget where I was? Oh, no, he went to get my old master’s help? Kinda pathetic, there’s no way-”

Gunshots ring out. Alternate-Irina drops from the ceiling, guns raised, and she continues firing. Reaper gets shot in his back multiple times and he stumbles forward, and Asano lifts his head in surprise to stare at Irina. The side of his face is bloodied and one eye is screwed shut.

Alternate-Irina fires a few more shots, but Reaper recovers and fires back, knocking the guns out of her hands. “You little  _ minx _ !” He says, “switching sides so easily! I should have killed you!” He shrugs off his jacket, riddled with bullet holes. It lands on the ground with a heavy thud, some reinforced bulletproof material, how unfortunate.

“Sorry, but I’ve kinda taken a liking to the kid,” alternate-Irina says, “anyone who makes you turn around is a pretty okay person in my book.”

“You’re causing me way too much trouble,” Reaper says. Irina’s not sure if it’s to the alternate-version of her, or Asano. Alternate-Irina shrugs unrepentantly, turns around and sprints away. Reaper looks down at Irina and Asano, and snorts. “If you two manage to get anywhere, I’ll let you go on account of how impressed I’ll be,” he says, and gives chase.

Irina props herself against the wall. “You okay?”

Asano eyes her warily with his one good eye. “Who the fuck are you?”

“Nine month old,” Irina grunts. Asano lets out a groan, and turns to his side, shielding his eyes from the lights. 

“I think I’m going to die,” Asano manages. He laughs wetly and takes in a shuddering breath.

“Probably,” Irina says. She crawls over to his side and leans over him to block out the lights, and runs her fingers through his hair. It comes off wet and sticky with blood. Asano curls up pulls himself up against her, and buries his face in her shoulder.

“You’ll be fine,” she says desperately. Already she feels his blood seeping onto her clothes, and red stains all alongside her arm.

“Sorry,” Asano murmurs.

“You’ll be fine,” she repeats, turning and pressing a kiss to his forehead. She continues to pat his wet hair as he shivers against her, closes her eyes, and prays.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reaper: any last words  
> Gakushuu, coughing up blood: b-bitch


	20. 2014

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a little squished, I don't know what to say

**2014**

Itona’s footsteps echo heavily in the empty hallway, he doesn’t hear anything but his own panting and he barely sees through the blurriness of his tears, which is why he trips and falls on a slightly wobbly tile.

The hard sound of his fall echoes in the hallway rather embarrassingly, too, but luckily no one is there to witness it. That’s a small comfort. Itona rubs at his eyes, and-

Another noise sounds out in the hallway, loud and voice slightly distorted with the resonance. “Who’s there?”

Itona furrows his brow. That voice sounded familiar. Who-

“I heard you fall,” says the voice distantly. “Who are you? It’s Karma.”

Itona winces. “Itona Horibe,” he says. “Alternate one.”

“Yeah,” Karma’s voice says, “okay. Are you on your way out? You might want to watch your step.”

“What?” Itona calls out, and frowns. Was Karma just mocking him about his fall? “Why are you here? Where’s Shiro?” 

“I left him with the Irinas, I wanted to help,” Karma says, “but, uhm, a spear came out of the wall and tried to impale me, so I wouldn’t move anywhere if I were you.”

Shit. The traps. Why were they set off? He was fine on the way here. “Remember I told you there were traps to prevent Koro-sensei’s escape?” Itona says.

“Uh huh,” says Karma. “I shouldn’t move then?”

Itona squints into the end of the hallway. It’s well illuminated but he sees no signs of any traps set, or any sign of Karma. He must be further down, around a corner. “Where are you?” 

“Dangling from the ceiling,” comes the answer, “my arms are really tired. I really don’t want to let go, though.”

Shit. “What do you mean?” Itona says. He takes a wary step forward. Nothing springs out from the walls or no trap doors open beneath him, so he takes another. And another.

“Are you walking?” Karma says accusingly. “I hear footsteps. Either you’re walking when I told you not to or I have another problem on my hands.”

“Thats me,” Itona answers. “Describe your surroundings.”

“Spears lodged in the walls,” Karma says, “I’m hanging onto one now, because there’s no floor beneath me. There was, but it opened up into, uh, spikes. Which is weird, didn’t you say Koro-sensei could fly?”

Spikes. How fucking tacky, Itona thinks hysterically. He tests each step, eyes darting around warily in the empty hallway, nothing happens in front of him or beside or below, but Itona does the very amateur mistake of not looking up-

The ceiling misses Itona by a breath of a hair. Itona opens his mouth in a scream but nothing comes out, and when blood rushes back into his ears he hears “-tona? Itona?” and then he realizes he’s dangling from two feet in the air.

No, no. He’s being held by someone. It’s Koro-sensei, looking down with a wry expression, and he gently sets Itona down on his feet. 

“What,” says Itona.

“Yeah, hi,” Koro-sensei says, “sorry about that. I’m not the biggest fan of, well, going along with plans with unfamiliar people. Give me a moment, I’ll rescue your friend from the ceiling.”

He phases out of human vision for a moment, and in the next blink Koro-sensei is back with a very shocked Karma in his arms, eyes blown wide and hair mused.

“What,” says Karma, “the fuck, was that?”

“Mach-20 speed,” Itona says. “It worked.” He turns and stares at Koro-sensei, but he looks very human. “You don’t have tentacles.”

Koro-sensei makes a face. “I… do, actually.” Tiny tendrils of white snake out from the back of his head, twisting and turning in reminiscent of Itona’s own tentacles, and they quickly disappear underneath his hair. Behind them, he hears Akari and the Principal catching up.

“Give me a bit, I’ll disable all the traps,” Koro-sensei says. He disappears again. 

“I didn’t run into Reaper on the way here,” Karma says. “Irina’s alive, though, with her alternate-self.”

Their comms open up again. “I’m just praying really really hard,” says alternate-Asano, “that mean-me just lost his earpiece in the fight.” 

“There’s something going on in the hallways,” alternate-Itona comes on, “but all the visuals have been cut. The only cameras working now are in the lobby and the… carpark. We’ve just been watching people drive out but we’ve logged all the car license plates.”

Koro-sensei blinks back into human vision, looking slightly frazzled. “Traps are all set off,” he says, “I need to catch my breath-”

He’s interrupted by a shrill feminine shriek, and a series of gunshots. Koro-sensei disappears again. Karma and Itona take off after him, they vault over fallen blocks of concrete and wrecked parts of Shiro’s security system, all broken spears and shattered glass and rather considerately, a plank placed like a bridge over the spike pit. When they round the corner they see Reaper with a chokehold around Irina, and a gun pointed towards Koro-sensei.

“That’s not our Irina,” Karma hisses to Itona.

Beside them, Akari and the principal silently land on their feet. Reaper’s eyes briefly flick towards them, but then he turns back to Koro-sensei and starts spitting curses. Koro-sensei, despite his words claiming nonchalance, seems pissed. 

Reaper pulls the trigger, then it’s over in a few pathetic seconds. Alternate-Irina is on her knees with wide eyes, the bullet is in the opposite wall, and Reaper is slumped in an unconscious heap with Koro-sensei standing on top of him.

Irina scrambles to her feet. She rubs her neck and turns towards Itona. “Your friend’s still alive,” she says, “but you better hurry. He probably won’t be for long.”

“Shit,” Itona hisses. Irina doesn’t glance back at Reaper or Koro-sensei and runs off, and Itona follows. She leads him through a completely different set of hallways and there they are, Irina and Gakushuu curled up together in the middle of the corridor. 

“Gakushuu,” Itona chokes out. Gakushuu’s head is cradled in Irina’s arms, who’s entire left side is now soaked in blood. He’s not moving. Irina looks up at Itona with pained eyes. 

“Is he,” Itona falls to his knees. He reaches out, he feels a little like back in 2002 wiping just the tiniest splatter of blood from little-Irina’s cheek. Gakushuu’s mouth is slightly parted, and his eyes are closed. Were his eyelashes always that long? Why was his hair wet? 

“Irina,” Itona gasps, “he told me to, he told me to-”

“Itona,” Irina sobs. 

“Gakushuu?” The principal kneels next to Itona, grief on his face for his… son? One he didn’t raise. He curls his fingers against Gakushuu’s cheek, presses lightly. An unseen cut slowly swells up with blood, red and glistening, like he was still-

“-alivet,” Itona says, “alive, we can bring him back, Irina, remember what happened to Akari-”

“Oh,” Irina says, eyes widening with a new, desperate hope. She adjusts Gakushuu in her arms and Itona staggers to his feet and turns to Koro-sensei, who had been watching with a mostly inscrutable expression.  

“Back in our time,” Itona says, “you saved someone. You saved Akari, she got impaled in the stomach by Reaper and we thought she was a goner but you did something, something with… stem cells, because, I don’t know how or why or anything like that but you did something, you put your stem cells into her wound just like that and-”

“Hey,” Koro-sensei says, and Itona pauses. This Koro-sensei wasn’t a supercreature in his fullest, he had tentacles but so did Itona and he sure as hell couldn’t do anything with his-

“I can’t promise anything,” Koro-sensei says gently, “but I’ll try, okay?”

“O-oh,” Itona says. 

Asano Senior was holding his son now, staining his own clothes red, as Irina clutches her side with a pained expression on her face. Koro-sensei kneels over them, and presses a palm to Asano’s shoulder. 

Akari was tightly gripping Karma’s arm. It was strange, Itona thinks, he’s used to being one of the youngest in class and rather coddled by the others, but here he was the older one. Itona walks over and tugs them close. “It’s going to be fine,” Itona tels them, despairingly hoping it would be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hint: the traps were set off because Koro-sensei "escaped" his cell.


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This feels so cliche. I'm tasting the cliche.
> 
> For your information the sequel I started writing to this is going terribly, here is an excerpt for your judgement:
>
>> ”By the way, what kind of painkillers are you giving him? I’ve never seen one that lasted this long.”  
> “It’s just morphine,” Gakuhou sighs. “Idiot ran into a wall and fell down the stairs again this morning so I took him back to the hospital.”  
> “I forgot there were stairs,” Gakushuu says incomprehensibly. 

When Gakushuu opens his eyes, the light practically blinds him, so he shuts them again and groans.

"He's awake!" He feels hands on his shoulders and on the side of his face. Gakushuu squints and sees the worried face of his father- no, not his father, but the weird alternate-universe version of him. 

"Did it work?" An unfamiliar voice and an unfamiliar face appears in his periphery. "Hello, little Asano."

"Seems so." Itona appears in his field of vision. "You okay, Gakushuu?" 

Gakushuu can't seem to find his voice. When he does, it comes out pained and raspy. "I feel like I got hit by a train," he chokes out.

"You got hit by my apprentice," New Guy says, "and shot several times. So like a train. I'm proud, honestly." Then gets viciously elbowed by his alternate-father, who looks pissed.

Gakushuu furrows his brow at him. "You're Koro-sensei?" 

"I don't know why you guys keep calling me that," says Koro-sensei, "but yes, I am the entity you call Koro-sensei."

"Remember I told you that in our timeline, Akari got impaled by Reaper? Koro-sensei saved her by implanting his stem-cells into her wound. We did the same thing for you." Itona wipes his eyes with the back of his hand, but he’s grinning. "Never,  _ ever _ , do that again."

"Fill me in on the details," Gakushuu says, “what did I miss?” He feels tired and aching but he manages to get to his feet shakily, and Itona slides under his arm to support him. 

"After you decided to be fucking stupid and face Reaper alone," Itona says, "I went to Irina. She was fighting with this universe's version of herself but, ah, she remembered me from 2002 and switches sides. Your alterna-dad found Koro-sensei, and I took a detour to pick up Akari before we went to get them."

Gakushuu looks back to see Akari and Koro-sensei in conversation, and his alternate-father with them. From the snippets of sentences he overhears, they were all talking about Aguri. "Then?"

"Well Reaper pretty much killed you," Itona says, voice wavering. "I wasn't sure if you'll make it. Irina’s alternaself managed to buy us some time because Koro-sensei took a bit of convincing, but he already has tentacles from Shiro's experimentation and took him down prettily easily, but you were losing so much blood I-"

Gakushuu stops in his tracks. Itona turns around to protest, and his eyes are just slightly wet, and Gakushuu pulls him into a hug. Itona lets out a surprised oomph, then sinks into the contact, and wraps his arms around Gakushu’s torso.

"Never do that again," Itona says, voice muffled.

"Don't plan to," Gakushuu sighs. ”Where’s Irina?”

Itona tightens his hold, and sighs, resting his head in the crook of Gakushuu’s neck. “Karma took her outside first. We found her with you, she got stabbed but was conscious.”

When they get outside, the first thing they hear is the piercing of police sirens. There were cop cars everywhere. "Oh, right, alternate us called the police," Itona tells him. "Well, they called Karasuma. Irina slipped his number to them and told them to call him if there was an emergency, because the police would just think it was a prank call but getting the personal number of a government agent meant that he listened to what they had to say."

Itona brings Gakushuu to a parked ambulance. Irina is there with her shirt off and a bandage on the side of her ribs, and thankfully a blanket over her front.

"Hey, you're looking good," she greets, "how was facing off with Reaper?"

"Apparently I died," Gakushuu says, "good call with the distraction. Saved my life. Where’s he?" 

Irina nods to another ambulance, with a man bundled up in a stretcher. "Koro-sensei did a number on him, evidently. Not my idea, though." Irina says. "Tired?"

"Exhausted," Gakushuu sighs. He leans against the back of the ambulance, and Itona hands him a bottle of water. Irina snorts a little.

"You look great," she says, "you think he can work his magic on my wound, too?" Gakushuu follows her gaze to see Koro-sensei with the alternate versions of Irina and his father, in conversation with a younger Karasuma and two officers. 

Four children bound up to the ambulance. "Mean-me!" Says alternate-Gakushuu, "you're alive."

"Brilliant," says Gakushuu. "So are you."

"Yanagisawa's  _ unconscious _ ," Akari sings, "well he technically wasn’t doing anything  _ illegal  _ given that all his research was approved and actually being government funded, even the human experimentation so nothing's going to happen to him. But I got to trash his office and erased all the security footage of the labs so  _ technically  _ none of us were inside at all and there’s no evidence to say that we broke into a lab." She sounds satisfied. “Just his future sister-in-law visiting with some friends she signed in with at the counter with getting caught in the crossfire between some assassin showdown.”

“I’m really good at forgery,” alternate-Karma says. “I didn’t sign in for you or future Itona, though, since neither of you exist.”

Itona laughs a little. He slides up next to Gakushuu to give the children space to clamber up on the ambulance ramp. "How was your first spy mission?"

"Fucking exciting," alternate-Karma says. “Glad no one died. Except for Reaper. Well, he’s not dead, but I wouldn’t care if he was.”

"Don't make a habit out of it," Irina says.

"Imagine that coming from you," Gakushuu says.

"The tolls of parenthood," Irina sighs. She looks happy.

Gakushuu must drift off, because everything else is a blur but after that he wakes up warm snuggled up to Itona and Irina on the couch of his house. His alternate universe house, he reminds himself. 

"Hey sleeping beauty," Irina says, "welcome back."

Next to him, Itona stirs and blinks bearily. Gakushuu expects to see the children and a dog all cuddled up with each other on the adjacent couch, but he doesn't expect to see the alternate versions of Irina and Karasuma next to his alternate-father on the adjacent couch, nor Aguri and Koro-sensei in the loveseat. 

"Technically," Koro-sensei is speaking loudly, " _ Reaper  _ is in police custody. I don't know who the original Reaper is, I've never seen his face or any records of there being more than one Reaper, have you, officer? I've never been interested in assassination in my life. I don't even know what that word means. My name is Koro Asano and I'm a travelling salesman who really loves Takoyaki."

Aguri giggles. Karasuma glares. Alternate-Irina rolls her eyes. Alternate-father says something like "since when did I have so many children?" and Koro-sensei says, "technically I'm your long-lost younger brother."

"This is stupid," Karasuma says. "I'll be keeping an eye on you."

"Me, an upstanding citizen?" says Koro-sensei.

Karasuma glares at him, harder. Alternate-Irina seems to have something akin to heart-eyes on. 

They spend another day resting, doing pretty much nothing. Itona informs him that Akari had, quote, “felt like absolute fucking shit” for the next few days after being brought back from the dead and Gakushuu certainly feels it. His newly healed eye doesn’t quite work very well yet and he walks into 3 walls before being confined to the bed in the guest room. Koro-sensei, newly dubbed Koro, spends half that day probing at Gakushuu, endlessly fascinated about his stem cells and demanding they try again. His alternate-father throws a shoe at him and tells him not to bother his children. 

“You really do use that word loosely,” Gakushuu tells him.

Alternate-Gakuhou looks pained. “Listen,” he starts.

“I know,” Gakushuu says, “you don’t have to try and convince me about your fatherly love or whatever. Relationship’s fucked, abusive, whatever, but I know he loves me and I love him back. Other you and I had this conversation the last time.”

Alternate-Gakuhou looks like he really wants to ask, but to his credit he doesn’t. He does spend an unnecessary amount of time fretting, which is uncomfortable because the last time Gakushuu was sick his father had thrown a bottle of pills onto his bed and tacked a fridge magnet with a funeral home’s number to his door, so he eventually yells for anyone to “get this insufferable old man away from my death-bed!”, and alternate-Gakushuu comes in to laugh at both of them.

"Okay," says Koro, looking over the device with Itona’s notes next to him, "I really don't know what this device is, but I think we can get you home by calibrating it."

"I really don't want to end up in the void of the end of time," Gakushuu says. 

"You won't," his alternate-father says, sounding unsure. He, Koro, Aguri and Itona pour over the device, and they finally tweak it to satisfaction. Gakushuu barely grasps the words that the adults are throwing around and he only feels marginally better when Itona looks just as confused as he does, until he realizes that means neither of them knows what’s going on or how to fix it.

“These notes,” Aguri says, holding a notebook to him. “They should have all our writings, so if you’re in a pinch, you can refer to them.”

“Hopefully we won’t need it,” Gakushuu says. Itona flips through the notebook and makes a face. "Do you think it'd work?"

"Only one way to find out," says Irina.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so in canon, Koro-sensei/Reaper Uno was captured when Reaper Dos betrayed him, and then thrown into a lab owned by Yanagisawa to be his human test subject. I don't remember if he was arrested by the government (I highly doubt so because I don't think any legal authority would give such a notorious assassin to a random research lab), so in this version let's just say he wasn't arrested by the government which means nobody should have records kept on Koro-sensei. 
> 
> And it's canon that Reaper Two pretended to be Reaper One so according to all official records there should have been only one single man taking up identity as Reaper (as it pans out). The logic of that is kind of weird but i suppose it's far better than starting off as his own assassin, as opposed to jumping off an already established title that carries tons of weight. And Reaper Two did a pretty good job too, I would say.
> 
> Yanagisawa's research was pretty legit (?) I don't think it was directly addressed in canon, correct me if I'm wrong, but his whole anti-matter research seems to be something that all the world leader's and higher-ups were well aware of and they just said "ight okay" and let him be. I don't think you can send a mouse to the moon, have the moon explode because of said mouse, have a human test subject that turns into a super-creature, and keep it on the down-low from legal authorities. They probably should have arrested the dude at one point but they didn't which leads me to believe that they were well aware of his unethical shenanigans and just blinked really long and that he's going to go off scot-free anyways. I mean, not without consequences, but without a slap on the wrist.
> 
> God I'm babbling


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we are. The end.

**2014**

"Hey, so," alternate-Irina says, sliding up to her, "the kids told me you told them to contact Karasuma. What's the deal with both of you?"

"I told you i was working for the Japanese government," Irina says, "he's my coworker."

Irina enjoys the disappointed look on her younger self's face and goes off, humming. "I'll tell her when they get it on in a few years," alternate-Asano says to her, winking conspiratorially, "it'd be a fun kept secret."

God, he was such an asshole like his older counterpart. Speaking of, Gakushuu was currently being fussed over by the alternate versions of his father and older brother, namely Gakuhou and Ikeda. It really said something about the Asanos of this time, given that Gakushuu wouldn’t stop snapping at them and Ikeda looked terrified out of his life but still continued to cautiously offer candy.

“Did he really try to chop off Ikeda’s fingers with a cleaver?” She asks alternate-Asano.

“Hm? Oh yeah,” alternate-Asano says, “it was just a joke, through. Uhm, I think.”

Eventually the gang of nerds deem the dongadoo sufficiently tweaked with, and hands it over. “Remember to come visit,” alternate-Asano says cheerily.

Much less cheerily, their Gakushuu says “how the fuck are we supposed to do that?” And Itona sniggers beside him. Irina mentally reminds herself to keep an eye on their relationship status when they get back to their own time.

“We’ll flip the switch together,” Irina decides, “it’s symbolic.” And the boys don’t argue with her, it does make a funny sight with all three of their fingertips at the edge of the switch standing in the front lawn of the Asano residence.

“3, 2, 1,” Gakushuu counts, and they flick the switch.  

 

**2018**

“Did it work?” Irina asks. She opens her eyes and sits up. They’re… in Itona’s electronic repair shop, the exact same place that started this mess. Or were they?

Next to her, Gakushuu buries his face in his hands and lets out a long groan. Itona rubs his head, and his eyes widen as he takes in the surroundings. He gets to his feet and throws the door open, squinting at the outside world before slamming it closed and getting back on the floor next to Gakushuu. “I think it did?” Itona says breathlessly.

Gakushuu squints at the ceiling against his fingers. “Are the lights super bright here or am I still recovering from being shot multiple times?”

The ceiling lights weren’t even on. “Recovery,” Irina tells him.

Gakushuu groans, again. He flips over on his stomach and pulls out his phone. Very, very slowly, it, the startup logo blinks to life.

“Yes!” Irina cheers. She pulls out her own too, as does Itona, and their phones blink to life. This was a pretty good sign, she thinks, given that their phones refused to work anytime else.

Gakushuu’s phone starts up first, and he quickly punches in a phone number and Irina and Itona lean over in anticipation as it rings. Then, “Asano residence, this is Gakuhou speaking.”

“Yes!” Gakushuu cheers. Irina whoops, and Itona grins.

There’s a pause on the line, and then, “...who is this?”

“It’s me, stupid,” Gakushuu says, “don’t you recognize my number?” He’s beaming.

“...who do you have with you? Why are you calling the landline?”

“God,” Gakushuu says, “I miss your mean, judgemental ass. Just to forewarn you, I’m going to hug you for an uncomfortably long time when I get home.”

Gakuhou sounds very befuddled. “Asano Gakushuu? That is you, right?”

“What a dumbass,” Gakushuu sighs happily.

“You should probably go to the hospital,” Itona warns him, “just in case.”

“Yeah,” Gakushuu says into the phone, “hear that? I’m going to hug you, and then you’re going to drive me to the hospital.”

Gakuhou’s voice is now laced with worry and confusion. “Why do you need to-”

“I got shot many many times,” Gakushuu says peacefully, “with bullets, from a gun. You remember Koro-sensei? So do I. Bye, see you,” and abruptly ends the call.

Immediately, his phone rings again. Gakushuu declies that call too, sets his phone on silent, then flops back on the floor. “That was _awful_ ,” Itona says, awe in his voice.

“Well, they don’t call me the mean-Gakushuu for nothing,” Gakushuu says, stretching. “Daddy dearest sounds as terrible as I remember him, but we might want to check more.”

“I got it,” Irina says. She dials Tadaomi’s number and sets it on speaker, and it rings twice before he picks up.

“I told you not to call me on the work phone,” Tadaomi sounds mildly irritated.

“Hi honey, I love you too,” Irina says, “how old is our baby?”

“...Mai?” Tadaomi sounds a little panicked now. “Irina? Did something happen? Where are you?”

“Just hanging out with the kids,” Irina says, and Itona and Gakushuu laugh a little. “How old is our baby?”

There’s a much longer pause on the line, then Tadaomi says very slowly, “nine months?”

“Thanks,” Irina says. She hangs up.

“Call someone else, I don’t want to move,” Itona says. He’s settled comfortably against Gakushuu now. Gakushuu grabs Irina’s hand and tugs her back to lie next to him on the floor, then curls up against her side using her shoulder as a pillow. He hums and presses another set of numbers into his phone, seriously does that kid remember how to use a contact book or did he just memorize everybody’s phone numbers? The phone rings longer this time, then, “hey second-place, why are you calling me?”

“Is that Karma?” Itona asks lazily.

“Is that Itona?” Karma says. “I recognize that voice. Gakushuu, are you hanging out with Itona?”

“I didn’t know you were on a first name basis with Karma,” Irina says.

“I called him Karma multiple times,” Gakushuu says.

“Gakushuu? This is you, right?” Karma says.

“Yeah, but Karma’s Karma to everybody. Nobody calls him Akabane. It’s like how everybody called me Itona in 3-E.” Itona says.

“Gakushuu?” Karma says, “Itona? And… Bitch-sensei?”

“Bye,” Gakushuu says, and hangs up. The three fall into a comfortable silence for a bit, just laid out on the floor like that, and Itona says, “I don’t really feel like moving.”

“Me neither,” Irina says.

“Same,” Gakushuu says, then, “I think rectangles taste salty.”

“Yeah, no, we should get him to the hospital,” Itona says.

“Oh, yeah. Besides,” Irina says, “triangles are the saltiest shape.”

“Oh my god,” says Itona.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> On the next installment of This Universe:
>
>> Gakuhou had let Gakushuu hug him for an uncomfortable amount of time, taken him to the hospital for a check-up and a standard drug test just to make sure he’s not tripping high on LSD or any other drugs, taken Gakushuu home and patted his hair until he babbled his way into a morphine-induced nap, and only then does he start cursing and accusing Irina of brainwashing, witchcraft or any related disciplines.  
> To which Irina had replied, ‘I’m flattered, Gakuhou, that you think of me capable of such a feat, but I have as much knowledge with time travel as does literally anyone else you pull from the street. You should ask Gakushuu about that.” And Itona dives for cover.  
> 

**Author's Note:**

> Look...
> 
> I can't defend myself. You're right. On the off chance you made it this far, feel free to comment and criticize! See everyone in a bit.


End file.
